Several organizations advocating for parental rights have urged the federal government to withhold funding from Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS) unless the district revises its policy in light of President Donald Trump’s executive order, “Ending Radical Indoctrination in K-12 Schooling.” In a complaint submitted on Wednesday to Education Secretary Linda McMahon and Attorney General Pam Bondi, these groups called for action against MPS.
The complaint, filed by the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty (WILL), and Parents Defending Education (PDE), asserts that the Department of Education should mandate MPS to inform parents if the school maintains a confidential gender support plan for their child without parental consent.
According to the complaint, MPS’s directive instructing staff to classify gender-related details as “confidential” and omitting them from official student records is in violation of federal law. The organizations cite the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) and the Protection of Pupil Rights Amendment (PPRA) to support their claim.
Under the district’s “Gender Inclusion Guidance,” school staff members must complete forms that inquire whether parents are aware and supportive of their child’s gender identity. If the parents are unsupportive, the guidance advises staff on how to manage school-home communications on the matter.
“This is such an important issue that we’re seeing in school districts across the country,” ADF senior counsel Kate Anderson told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “There’s a lot of litigation on it because it’s really hurting kids. Kids need their parents, especially when they’re struggling with something as complicated as their identity. They need their parents to walk alongside them.”
Anderson explained that the federal government can open investigations and pull funding from schools whose policies don’t comply with statutes like FERPA and PPRA.
Anderson further explained that the federal government has the authority to investigate and withdraw funding from schools that fail to comply with regulations such as FERPA and PPRA.
Recently, the U.S. Department of Education (DOE) launched an investigation into California’s Department of Education over a state law that prevents schools from disclosing a student’s gender identity to their parents, citing potential FERPA violations. Additionally, the DOE has initiated a similar investigation in Maine regarding school policies that do not require parental notification when a student identifies as a different gender at school.
Nationwide, multiple lawsuits have been filed challenging these policies, including cases initiated by ADF in Michigan and New York. In a significant ruling earlier this year, the First Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a Massachusetts school district’s policy, stating that “parental rights are not unlimited.” Additionally, the Supreme Court declined to review a case in December that involved another Wisconsin district accused of secretly encouraging gender transitions.
“As you may be aware, over a thousand school districts around the country have adopted policies to hide gender transitions at school from parents,” the complaint states. “Like many of these policies, MPS’s ‘Gender Inclusion Guidance’ provides that students, of any age, are ‘entitled to be addressed by an affirmed name and pronoun(s) of their choice that correspond to their gender identity,’ without notice to or permission from the parents.’”
Luke Berg, Deputy Counsel for WILL, said in a statement to the DCNF that parents “have the right and solemn responsibility to raise their own children.”
“Federal law recognizes the parental role, yet school districts around the country have been flouting parental rights,” he said. “With a new administration that supports parents, we hope that these secret transition policies can be eliminated once and for all.”
It is really disturbing that “transgenderism” is accepted as a fact! There is nothing more repulsive but to think that a man can decide that GOD made a mistake! If a man or a woman refuses to be called a homosexual in this day and age of “acceptance” by the party of INTRANSIGENCE, it is their choice. And their opinion! It should not be ” the law”!
The People do not have to accept those choices as Facts. Those psychologically disturbed elements of the populace would have been admitted into the “Looney Bins” of last century. Which, in a very disturbing way, were closed by the same “inclusive” party that now pushes those PSYCHOS to have more power and rights over us the “Normal People”! The Stupidity of the left brings to the forefront of thinking process the denial of GOD as well as the reality of the DEMONIC possession of the whole world political system. Denial of GOD? On a global stage?