Justice Department sues Kansas school system over policies on transgender students

Department of Justice filed a federal lawsuit Tuesday against the school system in Kansas City, Kansas, over its policies on transgender students. The lawsuit comes more than a year after the Education Department first said it was investigating four districts in Kansas following a complaint from the Defense of Freedom Institute. The conservative group’s complaint alleged the schools had policies preventing disclosure of a student’s “transgender status” to parents without the student’s consent.

Schools in Kansas City, Kansas, have a policy of using students’ preferred names and pronouns. The district also says requests from students who do not wish to involve their parents will be evaluated on a case-by-case basis, according to the Justice Department lawsuit. In April, the Education Department said it found the four Kansas districts in violation of the Family Education Rights and Privacy Act.

The districts violated the privacy law, the department said, by maintaining a policy of not disclosing a student’s gender transition at the parents’ request, though the department did not cite a specific instance where this happened. The districts did not sign the government’s proposed resolution agreements and, in June, the Education Department said it would work with the Justice Department to bring the districts into compliance. The district in Kansas City, Kansas, which has more than 20,000 students, disputed in a statement that it was out of compliance with federal law and said it was “disappointed by the DOJ’s decision to file the lawsuit.” It said it wouldn’t comment further because litigation is pending.

Some states — including Idaho and Iowa — have passed laws requiring parents to be notified when students seek to use a different pronoun or name as part of their effort to socially transition genders. Meanwhile, a lawsuit is pending over a California statute that barred schools from outing students. President Donald Trump’s administration has penalized schools that have made efforts to accommodate students based on their gender identity.

It has filed lawsuits in California and Minnesota over state policies permitting transgender students to participate in interscholastic sports and opened civil rights investigations into schools and universities over their policies on transgender students.