WASHINGTON, D.C. (LifeSiteNews) — The U.S. Justice Department’s (DOJ’s) Civil Rights Division announced on Thursday that it has opened investigations into 36 Illinois school districts for potential violations of federal rules against pro-LGBT education content and policies.
The probe will “examine whether the schools have notified parents of their right to opt their children out of” whatever instruction they may be conducting on “sexual orientation and gender identity,” the announcement says, and whether they are limiting restrooms, lockers, and athletic teams to actual members of their designated sex.
Potential infractions could be in violation of the Trump administration’s prevailing interpretation of Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, which defines “sex” as meaning only one’s actual sex, plus longstanding Supreme Court precedent on parental rights in education.
“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,” said Civil Rights Division Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon. “Supreme Court precedent leaves no doubt: parents have the fundamental right and primary authority to direct the care, upbringing, and education of their children. This includes exempting their children from ideological instruction that contradicts their values or decisions about their children’s health and best interests.”
The indoctrination of children with left-wing ideology on sexuality, race, and other agenda items has long been a major concern in American public schools and libraries, from book shelves to drag events to classroom materials to even “transitioning” troubled children without parental input. Many schools have also displayed hostility to the rights and employment of individual teachers who refuse to go along with such agendas. Across the nation, controversy has also erupted in recent years over schools and libraries adopting books that expose sexual themes and activity to children, often in graphic detail and with pornographic imagery depicting specific sexual acts.
In response, the Trump administration has issued executive orders to deny federal funds to educational entities that indoctrinate students through diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs, among other executive actions to combat so-called “woke ideology” in education, from LGBT indoctrination to girls’ intimate spaces and female-specific sports teams.
Illinois has long been one of the most far-left states in the Union for education and LGBT issues. Last year, Deerfield District 109 (which is not one of the districts DOJ named as under investigation), allegedly told parents angered by boys in their daughters’ locker rooms that girls unwilling to change in front of boys can simply change in other “private location[s].”
In 2017, Democrat Gov. J.B. Pritzker declared that, “As a protest against Trump’s rescinding protections for [so-called] trans kids, everyone should use the other gender’s bathroom today” (when confronted last year, he claimed not to recall the statement).