Education Secretary Linda McMahon accused public schools of secretly helping students socially transition while hiding that information from parents, but the federal investigations cited by her department focused on student privacy policies rather than evidence that educators encouraged children to transition.
McMahon made the claim during an appearance on Fox News’ Sunday Morning Futures, where host Maria Bartiromo asked whether schools were encouraging students to transition without informing their parents.
“This is a travesty that parents are not considered first and foremost in charge of their children. They don’t belong to the government,” McMahon says.
Hours after the interview, the U.S. Department of Education announced what it described as a “crackdown” on school districts it accused of secretly “transitioning” students and withholding information from parents. The department said it had taken action against Anne Arundel County Public Schools in Maryland and Ann Arbor Public Schools in Michigan, while the U.S. Department of Justice would pursue enforcement proceedings against the districts.
The administration’s findings, however, centered on school policies that treated a student’s gender identity as confidential educational or medical information in certain situations. The investigations did not present evidence that school officials encouraged students to socially transition, despite the department’s public characterization of the cases.
“As a mother and a grandmother, it is unconscionable that any school district would hide the most sensitive information about children in their care from their own parents,” McMahon says in a statement. “This is not only an affront to basic moral principles, but also to parents’ rights under federal law.”
One Maryland case cited by the Education Department involved parents who learned their child was using a different gender identity at school after receiving documents that used he/him pronouns. According to the department, the school’s principal declined to provide additional information about the student’s gender identity.
McMahon said the Education and Justice departments would continue pursuing school districts that withhold information from parents.
“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,” she says. “Under the Trump Administration, ED and DOJ are working together to vigorously uphold parents’ federal protections, and we will work to ensure that no parent is ever kept in the dark about important matters relating to their children.”
During the Fox News interview, McMahon also said the Education Department was considering withholding federal funding from Vermont’s Burlington School District over allegations that seventh-grade students were surveyed about sex, drugs, and alcohol without parental consent.
“This is really outrageous,” McMahon says. “To hide it from parents and actually create separate file folders so that when parents ask to see their children’s records, that is being kept from them, and it’s being done on purpose.”
Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon says school districts that withhold information from parents could face legal consequences, arguing that such policies violate the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA).
Despite the administration’s rhetoric, the joint announcement from the Education and Justice departments did not include evidence that educators were encouraging students to transition. Instead, it focused on school policies that, in some circumstances, allowed a student’s gender identity to remain confidential without the student’s consent to disclose it.
The latest enforcement action follows similar efforts by the Trump administration to challenge school policies designed to protect LGBTQ+ students from being involuntarily outed. McMahon has previously threatened to withhold federal funding from Kansas school districts over comparable allegations, while America First Legal, an organization founded by White House adviser Stephen Miller, has supported lawsuits challenging LGBTQ+ student privacy protections in Maryland.
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