The Trump administration is threatening action against a Maryland county after parents alleged their child was transitioned behind their backs.
Parents sued Anne Arundel County Public Schools on July 8, alleging that unidentified high school staff secretly “socially transitioned” their child.
‘The school was secretly helping their daughter pretend to be male.'
The Departments of Justice and Education issued a joint statement — entitled "Trump Administration Cracks Down on School Districts Secretly 'Transitioning' Students and Hiding it from Parents" — accusing the school district of violating parental rights.
The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act gives parents the right to review their children’s educational records. FERPA also empowers parents to request amendments to those records and control how they’re disclosed.
The DOJ and Education Department allege the Maryland school denied parents records access relevant to their child’s supposed social transition.
“When the parents approached school administrators about the matter, the principal declined to provide details about the student’s ‘gender transition,’ and the assistant principal refused to turn over the child’s relevant records,” according to the joint statement. “These policies and practices unlawfully impeded the parents’ ability to exercise their FERPA rights when it mattered most.”
America First Legal and Consovoy McCarthy PLLC are representing the anonymous parents in Maryland’s U.S. District Court.
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Identified as the Does, the parents discovered that "the school was secretly helping their daughter pretend to be male" after they received an email referring to their daughter by male pronouns, according to the joint statement. They previously educated their daughter "according to their religious beliefs that God creates each person as male or female, that sex is based on biology rather than internal self-perception, and that sex cannot be altered," the parents' lawsuit states.
“When confronted by the Does about this conduct, AACPS personnel first tried to lie and then, when that didn’t work, insisted that their actions complied with AACPS policy,” the lawsuit states.
“AACPS wrongly believes that it has greater authority than parents to control and direct the upbringing of students. AFL is eager and willing to correct this notion," senior counsel at America First Legal Ian Prior told Blaze News. "Parents have a fundamental right to know what is happening with their children at school, and they have every right to stop government officials from pushing radical gender ideology on their children."
"AFL is proud to stand with the Does as they fight to protect their daughter and vindicate their constitutional rights.”
AACPS did not respond to a request for comment. The Department of Education referred Blaze News to the DOJ.
AACPS policy, linked to the district website as of Tuesday afternoon, holds that information about a student’s gender identity can be considered “confidential medical information” and encourages staff to address students by their preferred pronouns.
"Let this serve as notice to every school district in the country: FERPA is not optional,” Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon told Blaze News. “The Department of Justice will enforce it to the maximum extent of the law, and any district that hides a child's sensitive information from their own parents should expect immediate federal action."
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