The U.S. Department of Justice has launched investigations into three dozen Illinois school districts, alleging that they may have failed to allow parents to “opt out” of lessons involving LGBTQ content.
The investigations, announced last week by the department, will also examine whether 35 school districts and Chicago’s largest charter school network allow transgender students to use bathrooms or participate on sports teams that align with their gender identity, rather than their assigned sex at birth.
In its news release, the Justice Department said it would determine whether the districts are adhering to Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, the federal law prohibiting sex-based discrimination in schools that receive federal funds.
The department also said it would ensure that the districts comply with a 2025 U.S. Supreme Court ruling requiring schools to allow parents to “opt out” their children from classroom instruction involving LGBTQ-related content, books, or lessons, as well as a March ruling that blocked a California law prohibiting teachers from “outing” transgender students to their parents.
“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,” Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon, of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, said in a statement.
“Supreme Court precedent leaves no doubt: parents have the fundamental right and primary authority to direct the care, upbringing, and education of their children,” Dhillon added. “This includes exempting their children from ideological instruction that contradicts their values or decisions about their children’s health and best interests.”
The Justice Department did not say what prompted the investigations into the specific school districts. More than half of the districts are in the Chicago area, but the list does not include some suburban districts where controversies over trans students’ use of gender-affirming restrooms and changing spaces, or their participation on female-designated sports teams, have cropped up in recent years.
Democratic Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker dismissed the Justice Department’s investigations as another example of the Trump administration attempting to “punish states the president does not like,” calling the inquiries part of a “sham investigation.”
“The Civil Rights Division used to investigate actual discrimination concerns to ensure all individuals are treated equally under the law, but they’re now focused on belittling the rights and humanity of LGBTQ+ communities,” Pritzker said in a statement.
In 2019, Pritzker signed legislation requiring Illinois public schools’ history curriculum to include “a study of the role and contributions of” LGBTQ people in U.S. and state history. It remains unclear whether that law prompted the Justice Department’s investigations or accusations that districts are attempting to indoctrinate students in so-called “gender ideology.”
Ed Yohnka, the director of communications and public policy at the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois, told Capital News Illinois that the Trump administration has wrongly interpreted federal and state law, which provide protections for transgender people against discrimination.
“None of these schools need some ideological culture warrior in Washington, D.C., telling Watseka what their curriculum should be,” Yohnka said. “The notion that the Justice Department is going to launch investigations and divert money for education because the president signed a piece of paper is just a misuse of our tax dollars.”
Poland’s Supreme Administrative Court has ordered a local civil registry to record the marriage of a Polish same-sex couple who wed in Germany in 2018.
The case involved JC-T, who holds both Polish and German citizenship, and MT, a Polish national. The couple married in Germany while living there under EU free-movement rules. When they later returned to Poland, local authorities refused to register their marriage, citing the constitution’s definition of marriage as between a man and a woman.
The couple challenged the decision, and after exhausting their appeals in Polish courts, the case went to the Court of Justice of the European Union. The court was asked to clarify whether EU law -- including free-movement rights and the EU Charter’s ban on discrimination -- requires countries that do not allow same-sex marriage to recognize valid marriages from other member states.
Republicans have attached five anti-LGBTQ riders to the National Security and Department of State Appropriations Act for fiscal year 2027.
The bill, which funds the U.S. State Department and national security programs, is considered "must-pass" legislation. Lawmakers often attach riders -- unrelated provisions with little connection to the underlying bill -- to such measures in order to push through proposals that might not survive greater scrutiny.
According to an Instagram post from the Congressional Equality Caucus, Republicans on the House Appropriations Committee attached the anti-LGBTQ provisions to the funding bill.
A lawsuit has been filed challenging a proposed referendum that would bar transgender athletes from competing on public school teams based on the sex listed on their original birth certificate.
The measure, slated to appear on the ballot this fall, would also require public schools to maintain sex-segregated bathrooms, locker rooms, and changing spaces based on students' birth sex, and allow students who believe they were denied athletic opportunities by a transgender competitor to sue for damages.
But three Maine residents filed suit, claiming supporters of the referendum failed to gather enough valid signatures from registered voters to qualify the measure for the ballot. In their complaint, they say they identified hundreds of duplicate signatures and hundreds more lacking required date information. They also allege that some signatures came from unregistered voters or omitted required residence information.
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