Education, Justice Departments Target Maryland, Michigan School Districts Over Gender-Identity Policies
They say concealing students' records from their parents violates federal law.
President Trump’s administration Monday announced it’s taking aim at two public-school districts — Anne Arundel County Public Schools in Maryland and Ann Arbor Public Schools in Michigan — over policies it says conceal information about students’ gender identities from parents.
The Department of Education said its Student Privacy Policy Office, working with the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, is pursuing enforcement action against Anne Arundel County after determining the district improperly classified information about a student’s gender identity as confidential medical information that could be withheld from parents. It declared the district violated the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, the federal law governing access to student records.
The department said Anne Arundel County parents discovered the district is “secretly helping their daughter pretend to be male at school” after receiving an email that referred to their daughter using male pronouns. When the parents approached school administrators, the release said, the principal declined to provide details about the student’s “gender transition,” and the assistant principal refused to turn over the child’s records.
The department said those actions “unlawfully impeded the parents’ ability to exercise their FERPA rights when it mattered most.”Anne Arundel County could face “applicable judicial proceedings and potential loss of federal funding.”
Separately, the department said an Ann Arbor policy generally barring employees from disclosing a student’s transgender status to parents, unless legally required or authorized by the student, likely violates FERPA. The department also ordered Ann Arbor to justify a rule requiring records containing a student’s birth name and gender to be kept in a separate, confidential file.
It gave the district until August 10 to defend that and a practice of keeping records related to a student’s gender identity in a separate filing system — or face “imminent enforcement action.”
Education Secretary Linda McMahon said “it is unconscionable that any school district would hide the most sensitive information about children in their care from their own parents.” She added: “Today, ED and DOJ are putting districts on notice that we will use every tool available to hold them to account for this egregious behavior.”
“School districts that hide information from parents are violating federal law,” said Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon, who leads the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. “FERPA is not optional, and any districts that attempt to bypass or distort its requirements should expect immediate federal action.”
The release did not identify the particular judicial or administrative proceeding the government intends to pursue against Anne Arundel County Public Schools. The Education Department referred The Washington Star’s request for comment to the Justice Department, which responded only by supplying Ms. Dhillon’s statement already included in the news release.
Anne Arundel County Public Schools told the Star it has not been formally notified of any actions.
“AACPS first learned of the U.S. Department of Education’s assertions through its July 27, 2026, press release,” the district said. “The school system has not received any formal notice, findings, correspondence, or supporting documentation regarding the actions described. Once such information is received, AACPS and its legal counsel will carefully review it and respond through the appropriate process. AACPS takes its responsibilities under FERPA seriously and cannot discuss matters involving an individual student.”
Ann Arbor Public Schools did not respond to a request for comment.
Monday’s action builds on a broader campaign by the Education Department and Justice Department to enforce FERPA against districts they say have hidden students’ gender transitions from parents. The department’s Student Privacy Policy Office sent a Dear Colleague letter in March 2025 to chief state school officers and superintendents at educational institutions receiving federal funding designating the practice a “priority concern,” with a cover letter from Ms. McMahon stating, “By natural right and moral authority, parents are the primary protectors of their children.”
The department issued what it called a first-of-its-kind finding January 28 against the California Department of Education over similar practices, including the creation of secret “gender support plans” and requests that a student-management software company hide children’s name changes and pronouns from parents.
And on June 30, it and the Justice Department announced a partnership to coordinate enforcement of federal parental-rights and civil-rights laws, part of a larger effort to shift Education Department functions to other agencies.
The dispute reflects a broader national divide over how schools should handle information about transgender and gender-questioning students. Some school districts and LGBTQ+ advocacy groups have argued that withholding a student’s gender identity from unsupportive parents can protect that student’s safety, while parental-rights groups and the administration contend such policies violate parents’ right under FERPA to inspect and review their children’s education records.
Judicial enforcement could test the administration’s interpretation that FERPA requires schools to provide parents access to records concerning a minor student’s gender identity.
FERPA permits the education secretary to withhold payments or terminate eligibility for applicable federal funding after finding substantial noncompliance that cannot be corrected voluntarily.
The department historically has sought voluntary compliance rather than terminating an institution’s federal funding, and published accounts say it has never imposed that ultimate penalty.
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