DOJ opened civil-rights investigation into LAUSD's gender-identity disclosure policy for transgender students

On March 25, 2026, the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division sent a letter to Los Angeles Unified School District notifying it of a federal civil-rights investigation into the district's gender-identity disclosure policy. The policy, formalized under LAUSD's "Inclusion and Affirming Schools" framework and adopted in 2019, gives school staff discretion on whether to disclose a student's gender identity to parents, requiring staff to weigh the student's safety and well-being before making any such disclosure. LAUSD is the nation's second-largest public school district, serving more than 400,000 students.

The investigation was authorized by Harmeet Dhillon, Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights, who framed the probe around parental rights. Dhillon stated that "parents have a fundamental right to the care, custody, and control of their children, including the right to direct their children's upbringing and education." LAUSD declined to comment on specifics, citing the pending investigation.

The DOJ's action was connected in part to a lawsuit filed by parents Kathleen Mulligan and Andrew Parke, who allege that LAUSD's gender-identity privacy policy contributed to the death by suicide of their child, Dylan Parke. The parents contend that district staff facilitated their child's social transition — including connecting Dylan with a therapist and allowing name and pronoun changes — without parental notification or consent, and argue that the resulting secrecy isolated their child rather than providing meaningful support.

The LAUSD investigation is part of the Trump administration's broader use of the Civil Rights Division to press school districts on transgender student policies. Dhillon's division has opened parallel inquiries into other districts across multiple states, each framed as parental-rights enforcement. The effect is to use federal civil-rights investigative authority — historically deployed to protect minority students from discrimination — as a pressure mechanism against policies that extend privacy and safety protections to transgender youth.