US Justice Department claims Maryland school district’s gender identity policy violates federal law News
Luna Lyons, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
US Justice Department claims Maryland school district’s gender identity policy violates federal law

The United States Justice Department on Tuesday filed a lawsuit in federal district court against the Anne Arundel County Board of Education alleging that the Maryland county’s school district’s policy on gender identity and expression violates federal law.

Specifically, the department claims that the school district’s policy perpetuates “secretly gender transitioning” students without parental consent and hiding parents’ access to information regarding their child’s preferred identification, therefore transgressing the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) and the Protection of Pupil Rights Amendment (PPRA). FERPA provides parents with the right to access their children’s educational records and control personally identifiable information, while the PPRA limits disclosure of “sensitive information,” like sexual behavior and attitudes, without parental consent.

“Schools should not discuss preferred pronouns or ‘gender identity’ with a student without parental notification and consent,” said Assistant Attorney General of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division Harmeet K. Dhillon. “Parents should not be lied to, stonewalled, or branded as ‘safety concerns’ when they ask to see the education records that reveal what schools are secretly doing to their children. This Department will end illegal school policies that keep parents in the dark.”

The school district’s gender identity policy, enacted to create a safe and inclusive space for students of any identity, has come under fire in recent months when, in July 2026, the district found themselves on the receiving end of a lawsuit from America First Legal on behalf of two private plaintiffs alleging that the district secretly facilitated their child’s “gender transition” at school without their consent. They claimed to have expressed to the district that their child should not be referred to anything other than her legal name, a request the school ignored when they chose to refer to the child by her preferred name instead.

Shortly after, the US Department of Education released a statement indicating that they were partnering with the Justice Department to take enforcement action against Anne Arundel County, including judicial proceedings and loss of federal funding for failure to comply with FERPA.

The application of pressure then prompted the district to amend their guidance on the policy to require parental permission to refer to a child by their preferred name and pronouns, as indicated by Superintendent Mark T. Bedell in an August letter to the community.

This action taken by the Justice Department is just one piece of a broader movement under the Trump administration to place restrictions on transgender students, gender identity, and gender expression in K-12 schools. Trump has previously signaled his opposition to inclusive policies, as reflected in his anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric, his statements that the government only recognizes two genders, attempts to suspend gender-affirming care for incarcerated individuals, and enactment of anti-LGBTQ+ orders and policies.

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