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The nation’s second-largest school district is under federal scrutiny for a policy allowing staff to hide students’ gender identity from parents, after federal officials cited allegations tied in part to a student’s suicide.
The Los Angeles Unified School District, comprising hundreds of K-12 schools and more than a half a million students according to public data, recently received notice from the Department of Justice Civil Rights Division indicating that it had come under investigation for the policy.
The investigation follows a broader parental rights battle that the Supreme Court recently weighed in on. The high court found last month that California must give school districts the option to have policies that require education administrators to notify parents if their child engages in gender transition, which dealt a massive religious freedom win to the parents who sued and sent a warning shot to other states and school districts across the country.
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The Civil Rights Division sent a letter on March 25 to the school district informing it of the investigation and that division head Harmeet Dhillon had authorized it, the New York Times reported this week. The DOJ “will not tolerate policies that deny parents’ fundamental rights,” Dhillon told the newspaper.
Reached for comment by Fox News Digital, Dhillon said some allegations against the school were confidential and that she could not provide additional information.
The letter from the Civil Rights Division reportedly cited a lawsuit brought by parents of a high school student who died by suicide, which the parents directly attributed to the controversial policy.
The letter, according to the New York Times, also cited a female student’s sexual harassment claim.
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The lawsuit was brought by the parents of Dylan Parke, who said their son suffered from serious depression and that they had been pursuing professional help for him when his school intervened without telling them.
“These harmful actions by employees and agents of Palisades Charter High School and Los Angeles Unified School District included referring Dylan to a counselor not employed by Palisades Charter High School without notifying Plaintiffs or seeking their consent or involvement,” lawyers for the parents wrote in the complaint. “These policies and practices promoted the intentional withholding of material information from parents regarding their child’s gender identity in furtherance of gender-affirming care.”
Parke disclosed to the school that he was “coming out publicly as transgender,” and “school personnel engaged in gender affirming care to facilitate Dylan’s social gender transition at school without parental knowledge, involvement, or consent,” the parents’ lawyers alleged.
When asked for comment about the DOJ probe, a school district spokesperson said, “Because this matter involves a pending investigation, we are unable to comment on the specifics.”
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