The department will investigate whether parents are notified about their right to opt out children from gender ideology topics.
The Department of Justice’s (DOJ) Civil Rights Division has launched multiple investigations into 36 Illinois public school districts to assess whether sexual orientation and gender ideology content is being taught in pre-K-12 grade classes.
If the districts are determined to be teaching sexual orientation and gender ideology-related content, “the investigations will examine whether the schools have notified parents of their right to opt their children out of such instruction,” the DOJ said in an April 30 statement.
“The investigation will also assess whether the Illinois School Districts limit access to single-sex intimate spaces (such as bathrooms and locker rooms) and girls’ sports teams based on biological sex.”
The probe will cover whether the districts violated Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, which explicitly prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex in education programs and activities receiving federal financial assistance. The districts are “recipients of hundreds of thousands of dollars of taxpayer funding,” the DOJ said.
The investigations will also look into whether the school districts adhere to the U.S. Supreme Court’s “extensive precedents on parental rights” as affirmed in Mirabelli v. Bonta and Mahmoud v. Taylor cases.
In the Mirabelli v. Bonta case, the Supreme Court blocked a California policy on March 2 that prohibited school personnel from informing parents when their children requested changing their preferred gender identity at schools.
“The State argues that its policies advance a compelling interest in student safety and privacy,” the court wrote in its decision. “But those policies cut out the primary protectors of children’s best interests: their parents.”
In the Mahmoud v. Taylor lawsuit, the U.S. Supreme Court sided with Maryland parents, who, for religious reasons, wanted to opt their children out from getting exposed to school storybooks promoting LGBT lifestyles.
Commenting on the DOJ’s probe into 36 Illinois school districts, Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon of the department’s Civil Rights Division said, “This Department of Justice is determined to put an end to local school authorities keeping parents in the dark about how sexuality and gender ideology are being pushed in classrooms.”
“Supreme Court precedent leaves no doubt: parents have the fundamental right and primary authority to direct the care, upbringing, and education of their children,” he said. “This includes exempting their children from ideological instruction that contradicts their values or decisions about their children’s health and best interests.”
The Illinois school districts under investigation include Bloomington Public Schools District, Lick Creek Community Consolidated School District, O’Fallon Community Consolidated School District, and Pembroke Community Consolidated School District.
The Epoch Times reached out to these school districts for comment but did not receive a response by publication time.
The full list of school districts being probed was posted on the DOJ website.
