Trump Challenges California on Transgender Parental Notification
The New York Times
The Trump administration will investigate whether a new California law banning parental notification requirements in schools violates federal policy.
The Trump administration asserted on Thursday that California’s new law protecting transgender students from unwanted disclosures to their parents was a violation of federal law.
The announcement foreshadowed a potential legal battle over one of the most contentious issues in education — and a threat to a state law that is considered a milestone in transgender rights.
The move could empower conservative school boards and parent activists in California and across the country, who have resisted efforts from liberal educators and policymakers to affirm transgender identities.
The California law, known as the Safety Act, prevents school boards from requiring staff members to tell parents when a student asks to use a different name or pronoun. It was the first law of its kind when Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, signed it in July, and it went into effect on Jan. 1. The act came after more than a dozen conservative-led school boards tried to mandate parental notification.
Democratic leaders in the state have criticized disclosure requirements as a “forced outing” that would harm the well-being of students. “Choosing when to ‘come out’ by disclosing an L.G.B.T.Q.+ identity, and to whom, are deeply personal decisions,” the law states, “impacting health and safety as well as critical relationships, that every L.G.B.T.Q.+ person has the right to make for themselves.”
But Republicans have said that notification was a matter of parental rights. The Trump administration argued on Thursday that California’s policy contradicts FERPA, or the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, a federal law that allows parents to access their children’s educational records.
