USA vs CA - Two Updates: USDOE Says CA Broke Law Hiding Gender Change Info From Parents And They Say SJSU Violated Title IX With Biological Male on Girls Volleyball Team

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Part One: U.S. Education Department Finds California In Violation Of Federal Law For Hiding Student Gender Transitions From Parents

For years, California’s liberal political leadership insisted that its school policies around sex and identity were compassionate, lawful, and beyond serious legal challenge. That claim has now collided with a federal determination. The U.S. Department of Education has found California in violation of federal law for its handling of students who come to school presenting as the opposite sex, or who have approached school staff about wanting to be a gender different than their biological sex, concluding that the state’s policies interfered with parents’ rights.

The issue is whether schools may withhold information from parents when a child wants to, or attempts to, “change” their gender at school. California officials defended policies aimed at preventing what they call “forced outing.” Federal officials concluded that those policies evolved into a system in which schools kept parents unaware of significant developments in their children’s lives.

According to the federal finding, guidance from the California Department of Education encouraged districts to treat so-called “gender support plans” as separate from ordinary student records. These plans often set out new names, pronouns, and instructions for staff, including how to interact with parents who are not informed. Under federal law, parents have the right to inspect records directly related to their minor children. Washington’s position is that California created a bureaucratic end run around that right. Even if a district says parents may request records, a parent cannot request a document whose existence has been deliberately concealed. If the plan is stored outside what schools consider the normal student file, there is a serious question whether it would be produced.

The federal finding rests on parents’ legal right to access education records under FERPA, and the department argues these plans were handled in ways that prevented parents from exercising that right.

Sacramento’s defense has been predictable: state law does not technically require secrecy, and parents may still request records. Federal regulators were unconvinced. They concluded that the combined effect of state laws, official guidance, and legal action against districts favoring parental notification created a chilling effect. According to the federal finding, districts were placed in a position where parents were effectively kept out of the loop.

From Culture War To Federal Enforcement

California long positioned itself as a national leader in left-wing education policy. Until now, most pushback has come through local school board disputes and extended litigation. The difference now is that the challenge comes from the same federal government that provides billions in education funding.

California receives nearly $8 billion a year in federal education funding—funds that come with compliance obligations—supporting programs for low-income students, special education, and school nutrition. When the U.S. Department of Education declares a statewide system out of compliance with federal law, the issue is not symbolic. Federal funds come with conditions, and Washington is now enforcing them. If California refuses to make changes, those funds could ultimately be placed at risk.

The administration outlined specific steps California must take, including clarifying that these transition plans qualify as education records subject to parental inspection and stating that state law cannot override federal requirements. This is a demand for operational change, not a semantic adjustment.

This reframes the politics. “Student identity policy” sounds like a niche ideological debate. “Schools hiding information from parents” does not. Most families do not follow the terminology, but they understand that schools should not keep secrets about their children’s well-being.

Gavin Newsom has built a national profile in part by presenting California as a showcase for left-wing social policy. He now faces a federal government arguing not about ideology but about parents’ legal rights.

Parents Or The State — Who Is Ultimately Responsible?

Strip away the legal jargon and agency acronyms, and the issue becomes direct: who bears responsibility for the well-being of a minor child — parents or government employees?

California’s model increasingly assumes that school personnel and counselors are better positioned than families to handle the most sensitive issues in a child’s life. That assumption underlies policies allowing a student to begin presenting (I think that is the right word) as the opposite sex at school while parents remain unaware. To many families, that is not compassion but a warning sign. A child telling teachers that he or she is confused about sex or wants to change gender signals a need for parental involvement, not institutional secrecy.

Parents live with the long-term consequences of childhood decisions. They are guided by faith, values, and a lifetime of knowing their own child. Schools exist to educate, not to replace the family or stand between children and their parents.

This mindset — that school officials know better than families — runs deep in California’s public education system. It is no coincidence that this mindset flourishes in a system heavily influenced by the powerful, left-wing California Teachers Association. The same union that supports rules limiting parental involvement in the classroom also resists alternatives that would give parents more control, including charter schools, homeschooling, or scholarship programs that allow funding to follow the child rather than the system, let alone a meaningful say in the materials taught to their children.

Part Two: Federal Civil Rights Officials Find San Jose State Violated Title IX Over Male Athlete In Women’s Sports

While the fight over parental rights unfolds in K–12 schools, Washington opened another front in higher education. The U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights determined that San José State University violated Title IX by allowing a biological male who identifies as female to compete on the women’s volleyball team.

Title IX was enacted to ensure equal opportunities for women in education and athletics. The Department of Education concluded that allowing a biological male to compete in women’s sports undermines those protections and that the university failed to properly address complaints raised by female athletes. The department’s civil-rights office said female athletes were denied fair athletic opportunities and that the university failed to adequately respond to Title IX complaints related to the situation. This is being treated not as a campus culture dispute but as a civil-rights violation affecting women.

In its enforcement posture, the department emphasized that schools receiving federal funds have a legal obligation to protect women’s athletic opportunities and cannot sidestep that responsibility by redefining sex-based categories. Compliance with Title IX means preserving women’s sports as a sex-based category, not a self-identification category.

This situation did not emerge in a vacuum. California’s political leadership, led by Governor Gavin Newsom, has signed and promoted policies elevating the idea that sex is subjective and that institutions should organize around self-declared identity rather than biological reality. That framework runs into laws like Title IX that were written to protect opportunities for women based on biological sex.

The idea that a person can choose a gender identity remains controversial to much of the public. The idea that physical sex is merely subjective is even further outside the mainstream. Yet California’s governing class embedded that assumption into law and policy. Federal civil-rights enforcement is now colliding with that worldview, and institutions like San José State are learning that alignment with Sacramento does not override federal law.

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