Complaint seeks federal investigation into secret gender transition policy
The News: The Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty (WILL), alongside Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) and Parents Defending Education (PDE), filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Education (DOE) and the U.S Department of Justice (DOJ) against the Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS) for its secret gender transition policy.
MPS’ current policy allows school staff to create a “Gender Support Plan” and “Gender Communication Plan” for a minor student without notifying the parents, and then to hide those plans from the student’s record to prevent the parents from accessing them. This policy directly violates the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) and the Protection of Pupil Rights Amendment (PPRA). To its credit, the Trump administration has prioritized enforcing these federal laws. Accordingly, our complaint urges DOE to open an investigation and obtain compliance with federal law, or, if necessary, rescind federal funding.
The Quotes: WILL Deputy Counsel, Luke Berg, stated, “Parents have the right and solemn responsibility to raise their own children. Federal law recognizes the parental role, yet school districts around the country have been flouting parental rights. With a new administration that supports parents, we hope that these secret transition policies can be eliminated once and for all.”
Nicole Neily, President & Founder of Parents Defending Education, stated, “Over the past several years, PDE has documented over 1200 districts (and counting) with parental exclusion policies that deliberately withhold gender identity information from families. For years, our tax dollars have been weaponized against us by school officials who undermined the parent-child relationship and interfered with our ability to direct the care and upbringing of loved ones—all behind our backs. This is truly an insult to injury, and we ask that the Trump Administration take steps to address this egregious overreach in Wisconsin as it has in other states around the country.”
Sarah Parshall Perry, Vice President & Legal Fellow, Parents Defending Education, stated, “For too long, the previous Administration sacrificed the interests of parents, students, and female athletes on the altar of its progressive agenda. The prohibition against sex discrimination in any federally funded education program under Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 was never conceived to also prohibit “gender identity” discrimination. But the prior Department of Education manipulated the plain text of the statute to render female scholastic athletes bystanders to their own equality as men across the country divested young women of scholarships, titles, and roster slots. In addition, federal privacy laws like FERPA & PPRA exist to ensure parents can protect the sensitive information of their minor children, not be shielded from it by school gender secrecy policies that obfuscate on how minors self-identify at school. For more than 100 years, the Supreme Court has reinforced the primacy of parental authority in directing the upbringing and education of their minor children. The tide is changing, and we look forward to the Department’s investigations into Washington and Wisconsin schools for violations of unambiguous federal law.”
MPS is Violating the Law: The PPRA gives parents the right to prior notice and to opt their children out of certain surveys and evaluations. And FERPA gives parents the right to access their children’s records. Yet the District’s policy allows an adult staff member to sit alone with a minor student to fill out a questionnaire about their gender and their relationship with their parents, to create a plan for a secret transition at school, and then to hide that plan from the parents.
Federal Funding Now in Jeopardy: President Trump’s January 29 executive order entitled, “Ending Radical Indoctrination in K-12 Schooling,” directed the Department to develop a plan, within 90 days, to prioritize enforcement of parental rights, and, specifically, FERPA and the PPRA. Just recently, DOE announced investigations into California and Maine schools on these grounds, and sent a Dear Colleague Letter about how these laws apply to gender transition policies.
Consistent with those actions, we respectfully urge the Department to open an investigation into these plain violations of federal law and to revoke MPS’ federal funding if MPS will not rescind these policies and stop hiding gender transitions at school from parents. We also ask the Department to require MPS to notify the parents of any child for whom MPS maintains a secret gender support plan without the parents’ awareness.
Complaint, April 2025
