PRESS RELEASE: DFI Files Federal Civil Rights Complaint Against Maryland State Department of Education and Several Maryland School Districts for Title IX and FERPA Violations

Complaint targets policies allowing boys in girls’ sports and spaces and directing schools to hide students’ gender transitions from parents

WASHINGTON— Today, the Defense of Freedom Institute for Policy Studies (DFI) filed a federal civil rights complaint with the U.S. Department of Education (Department) against the Maryland State Department of Education and three local school districts — Montgomery County Public Schools, Prince George’s County Public Schools, and Frederick County Public Schools — for violations of Title IX and the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA).

The complaint identifies Maryland policies that permit boys to compete in girls’ sports and access girls’ intimate facilities, while simultaneously directing school staff to conceal students’ gender transitions from parents, including by complying with requests to change names and pronouns without parental knowledge or consent.

DFI’s filing asks the Department’s Office for Civil Rights and Student Privacy Policy Office to investigate these policies, enforce federal law, and hold Maryland education agencies accountable for practices that discriminate on the basis of sex and undermine parents’ rights.

“The policies of the Maryland education department and the school districts named in the complaint illegally sacrifice girls’ safety, privacy, and equal opportunity at the altar of gender ideology and supplant parental rights with a ‘government-knows-best’ approach,” said Paul Zimmerman, Senior Policy and Regulatory Counsel at DFI. “In their quest to defy the current administration’s correct interpretation of civil rights and privacy laws, these education agencies are forcing schools to harm students and hide information about children’s well-being from their parents. Such policies are not only unacceptable; they are unlawful.”

The complaint details statewide and local directives instructing school employees to withhold information from parents when students request to change their gender identity at school. DFI explains how these directives violate FERPA by effectively preventing parents from accessing records and critical information about their own children and by requiring staff to disclose private information about children to others without parental consent.

“Parents don’t lose their rights when their child walks through the school door,” said Bob Eitel, President of DFI. “Maryland is telling educators to keep secrets from parents while making life-altering decisions about their children behind closed doors. That’s not compassion. That’s unlawful government interference in a parent’s right to determine his or her child’s upbringing.”

DFI’s complaint also highlights Maryland state and school district policies requiring schools to allow boys to room with girls on overnight trips and to use female locker rooms and restrooms, while requiring female students who object to sharing their designated sex-separated spaces with men and boys to use alternatives, such as distant, single-user facilities. These policies unlawfully place the burden on students to adapt to ideology untethered from biological reality rather than enforcing sex-based protections guaranteed under federal law.

To read the full complaint, click here.