The Justice Department Civil Rights Division launched investigations into 36 Illinois School Districts for teaching sexual orientation and gender ideology (SOGI) content in grades pre-K-12 classes.
The focus of the investigations will be on whether the districts included these gender ideology and sexual orientation in lessons without notifying parents of their right to opt out of such instruction. The investigations also focus on whether the Illinois School Districts limit access to single-sex intimate spaces (such as bathrooms and locker rooms) and girls’ sports teams based on biological sex.
Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. stated, “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. 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.”
Examinations will determine if these districts, which all receive hundreds of thousands of dollars of taxpayer funding, are adhering to Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 and the Supreme Court’s extensive precedents on parental rights as recently reiterated in Mirabelli v. Bonta and Mahmoud v. Taylor.
The school districts are:
The Illinois School Districts under investigation include:
- Atwood Heights School District 125
- Bloomington Public Schools District 87
- Bluford Unit School District 318
- Buncombe Consolidated School District 43
- Center Cass School District 66
- Central School District 104
- Community High School District 155
- Country Club Hills School District 160
- Crete-Monee School District 201-U
- DeKalb Community Unit School District 428
- East Dubuque Unit School District 119
- Elmwood Park Community Unit School District 401
- Freeport School District 145
- Galena Unit School District 120
- Gillespie Community Unit School District 7
- Iroquois County Community Unit School District 9
- Leyden Community High School District 212
- Lick Creek Community Consolidated School District 16
- Lyons School District 103
- Martinsville Community Unit School District C3
- Meridian Community Unit School District 223
- Noble Network of Charter Schools
- North Chicago Community Unit School District 187
- North Palos School District 117
- Norwood Elementary School District 63
- O’Fallon Community Consolidated School District No. 90
- Oak Lawn-Hometown School District 123
- Odin Public School District 722
- Oregon Community Unit School District 220
- Pembroke Community Consolidated School District 259
- Reavis Township High School District 220
- Ridgeview Community Unit School District 19
- Stockton Community Unit School District 206
- Tamaroa School District 5
- Thornton Fractional Township High School District 215
- Will County School District 92
This case is of particular interest in Maryland since the Mahmoud v. Taylor decision was based on a decision by the U.S. Supreme Court against the Montgomery County Public Schools. Montgomery County had denied parents of the district the ability to opt out of gender ideology/sexual orientation lessons which included reading materials that promoted those ideologies.
In Mahmoud v. Taylor, parents from Muslim, Roman Catholic, and Ukrainian Orthodox backgrounds challenged Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) after the district rescinded a prior policy that allowed parents to receive notice and opt their children out of instruction involving LGBTQ‑inclusive storybooks in grades Pre‑K–5. The parents didn’t want to remove the reading materials, instead they wanted the ability to opt their children out of reading said materials.
-Jan Greenhawk, Author
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