Now the U.S. Department of Justice is investigating whether three districts gave parents advance notice of lessons pertaining to sexual orientation and gender identity so their children could be excused. Officials are also investigating whether the districts received any complaints “regarding sex-segregated bathrooms” and other spaces, indicating that the federal government is committed to ensuring “the safety, dignity, and innocence of our youngest citizens.” 

On Wednesday, Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon sent letters to the superintendents of the Detroit, Lansing and Godfrey-Lee school districts, asking for all materials that reference sex and LGBTQ-related terms as well as any complaints or inquiries the districts might have received related to those issues. 

“This Department of Justice is fiercely committed to ending the growing trend of local school authorities embedding sexuality and gender ideology in every aspect of public education,” she said in a statement. 

The letters to the district’s superintendents signal the Justice Department’s willingness to aggressively enforce last year’s U.S. Supreme Court decision in in which the justices sided with a group of parents who argued they should be able to opt their elementary school children out of lessons related to LGBTQ-themed storybooks for religious reasons. Michigan’s standards, Dhillon wrote, could be at odds with the court’s decision. 

If the districts don’t agree to the department’s demands, they could be at risk of losing federal funding, she wrote. Including school nutrition funds and Medicaid, the Detroit Public Schools Community District, for example, receives over $200 million, according to Jeremy Vidito, chief financial officer.

Officials with Detroit and Lansing districts did not return phone calls or emails, but in an email, Arnetta Thompson, superintendent of the Godfrey-Lee district, called the investigation a “standard review process.”

“We are fully cooperating with this inquiry and will provide any requested information,” she said. “The district is not facing any charges or findings of wrongdoing. We remain committed to complying with all applicable federal, state and local laws and have consistently operated in accordance with those laws.”

In a statement, Michigan state Superintendent Glenn Maleyko said his department supports the three districts that “have been targeted” by the DOJ and said Dhillon wrongly characterized the health guidelines as state requirements. 

Parents, he said, ”retain the right to decide whether their children should participate in sex education instruction. And state officials will work with the districts to “select a curriculum that best supports the needs of their students, consistent with state standards and guidelines.” 

The investigations reflect the Trump administration’s parental rights agenda, whose nearly singular focus has been to restrict lessons or policies related to gender identity. In a last September, Attorney General Pam Bondi said state and local officials have “ignored, dismissed and even retaliated against concerned parents who speak out against these morally and factually bankrupt ideologies.” One of President Donald Trump’s earliest rejected the Biden administration’s efforts to extend Title IX protections to transgender students. But some experts say it’s highly unusual for the Department of Justice to get involved in matters related to curriculum.

“These investigations depart from longstanding DOJ practice of not dictating or interfering with school curriculum,” said Johnathan Smith, chief of staff and general counsel at the National Center for Youth Law. A former deputy assistant attorney in the DOJ’s civil rights division, he said previously, the department “intentionally avoided” those issues.  

Brian Dittmeier, director of LGBTQI+ Equality at the National Women’s Law Center, added that the DOJ’s probe is a “blatant attempt to discourage inclusive education” and takes the Mahmoud decision too far. While that case focused specifically on books that the Montgomery County schools in Maryland added to its reading curriculum in the early grades, DOJ is looking at “content in any class” for pre-K through 12th grade.

But Jonathan Butcher, acting director of the Center for Education Policy at the conservative Heritage Foundation, said the DOJ’s action appears “consistent with the degree of parent empowerment under Mahmoud.”

“Parents need a level of trust that schools will reflect their values, or at least not contradict their values,” he said. It’s likely, he added, that other districts will see similar investigations in line with “the Education Department and White House’s goals to protect students from explicit material.”

‘Capacity issue’ 

The fact that the DOJ is involved instead of the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights could reflect a “capacity issue,” Dittmeier said.

In December, Education Secretary Linda McMahon recalled more than 250 OCR employees to handle a growing backlog of complaints. They had been on administrative leave as a result of her attempts to downsize the department. 

While McMahon has moved to shift Education Department offices to other agencies, she has not yet announced where OCR would go. in Congress, however, would move OCR to the Justice Department. The Education and Justice departments also formed a last April to speed up Title IX investigations and “use the full power of the law to remedy any violation of women’s civil rights,” Bondi said in a statement.

While Detroit, with almost 49,000 students, is the state’s largest district, it’s unclear whether any specific complaints triggered the investigations. Lansing, the state capital, declared itself last year. 

In 2024, former state Superintendent Michael Rice honored Godfrey-Lee, a small, 1,700-student district south of Grand Rapids, for the state’s 21st Century Model School Library award. He recognized media specialist Harry Coffill for including “diverse books” on the shelves.

The letters to each district ask for an extensive list of materials, dating back to 2023, that include “slideshows, presentations, imagery, posters, signage, recordings and handouts” that reference a variety of terms like “gender spectrum,” “gender expression,” “puberty blockers” and “transitioning.” 

Dhillon wants leaders to turn over any forms, notices or permission slips that demonstrate how the districts notify parents when a lesson references sex and gender. She also asked for detailed records of any complaints or questions from parents related to topics such as “queer culture,” “LGBTQIA+,” “Pride Month” or “drag queen.” 

note that parents should receive prior notification of sex education classes and curriculum and that they have a right to “opt out their child from all or some” of those lessons. Lansing’s related to controversial issues, for example, says schools will “honor a written request” for students to be excused “for specified reasons.” 

State Superintendent Maleyko said the “breadth and scope” of Dhillon’s requests “place a significant administrative burden on local districts and risk diverting time and resources away from the core mission of educating students.”

Shortly after starting my career as an assistant professor, my dean received a troublesome email from a former public school superintendent. The influential educational leader was demanding my dismissal. My sin — I advocated for pension reform. Fortunately, I had a dean who understood what academic freedom was, and, though I did not yet have tenure, said I was free to make arguments, conduct research, write and talk about academic issues even when those arguments challenged the dominant paradigm. 

There were no grounds for firing me simply because I believed — and could demonstrate — that the state’s teacher pension system was underfunded and unfair.

Academic freedom is granted to professors by their employers not as a matter of right, but as a good practice for facilitating the advancement of knowledge. It is necessary for the pursuit of truth. And tenure, formalized job protections for academics, can serve a valuable purpose. Yet, too many teachers and professors seem to have lost the plot. They see academic freedom as license to say whatever they like without repercussions. They fail to recognize that rights also confer responsibilities.

First and foremost, as those entrusted with educating the next generation, teachers and professors have an obligation to conduct themselves in a manner worthy of the positions they hold. They must steward the trust of parents and society by honoring the fact that education is not their private playground, but a public responsibility. Academic freedom does not mean K-12 teachers can close the classroom door and teach whatever they like.

Nor does it mean that a college professor can inject ideas into the classrooms that are not called for by the course description or syllabus. Imagine if a physics professor decided to lecture on gender ideology instead of Newton’s laws, or claimed that gravity was merely a social construct. Educators are not entitled to use required courses as platforms for whatever ideas strike their fancy. Their content must align with the approved curriculum and the professional standards of their discipline. To abuse the classroom in such ways is not an exercise of freedom, but a betrayal of a sacred trust.

Second, educators at all levels must be committed to the pursuit of truth and open dialogue. This means that both students and professors must be free to ask difficult, even unsettling, questions. In his book No Adult Left Behind: How Politics Hijacks Education Policy and Hurts Kids, political scientist Vladimir Kogan asked, “Is the loss of democratic control sometimes necessary to do what is right for kids?” In Freakonomics, Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner famously asked whether legalized abortion contributed to the decline in crime during the 1990s. These are controversial questions — but they are legitimate. They can and should be investigated and debated. Too many educators today, however, are not interested in the pursuit of truth; they are interested in propagating only their truth. When education becomes a vehicle for ideology rather than inquiry, it ceases to be education at all.

Finally, teachers and professors have a responsibility to form the character of their students. This requires cultivating habits of intellectual humility, honesty and respect for human dignity. When educators glorify acts of violence or trivialize evil, particularly while in the classroom, they betray this calling and corrode the moral foundations upon which genuine education rests. Following the assassination of Charlie Kirk, an of and college professors reveled in his murder, making vile comments online. When rightly challenged on these disgusting statements, they used their rights as a shield. They claimed they were protected by academic freedom or the First Amendment’s free speech guarantees. And maybe they are. That may be up to the courts to decide.

Regardless, in posting such comments, they forgot their responsibilities as educators. Teachers and professors, like all citizens, have free speech — they can publish articles, write blogs or stand on a streetcorner and say what they want. But academic freedom does not entitle them to a paycheck, especially from a government institution. Nor does it entitle them to conscript students into hearing their personal views in courses those students are required to take. Educators who celebrate murder have demonstrated they do not have the moral framework for the positions they hold.

Our rights as citizens have corresponding responsibilities. We have the right to vote, so we have the responsibility to educate ourselves on the issues and candidates. We have the right to religious freedom; therefore, we must honor the freedom of others to believe or not believe differently. We have the right to free speech, so we have the responsibility to avoid deliberate falsehoods, slander or reckless speech that undermines civil discourse. This same framework extends to those entrusted with the title of teacher or professor, especially those who serve in public institutions.

Preserving the integrity of schools and universities means recovering a proper understanding of the responsibilities that come with the rights of educators. Academic freedom is indispensable, but it was never meant to be a license for recklessness, indoctrination or moral corruption. 

It is a trust extended to those tasked with forming minds and shaping citizens. When teachers and professors embrace that trust with seriousness — seeking truth, modeling virtue and respecting the boundaries of their calling — education flourishes. When they abandon it, both students and society pay the price.