California sues Trump administration over demand to let schools disclose students' gender identity

(CN) — California sued the Trump administration Wednesday over a demand that the state allow its schools to notify parents if their children identify with a gender other than the sex they were assigned at birth or lose $4.9 billion in federal funding.

California Attorney General Rob Bonta filed a complaint in San Francisco federal court against the U.S. Department of Education, claiming that this parental notification policy pertaining to gender identification is not required by the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, as the Education Department insists.

“This is a flagrant attempt by the U.S. Department of Education to intimidate the California Department of Education and California’s local education agencies under the guise of enforcing FERPA,” Bonta said in a statement. “The Trump administration has produced no evidence that CDE is out of substantial compliance with FERPA, or even a single instance where a school has failed to honor a parent’s request for student records.

California argues that the U.S. Education Department last year opened an investigation into its schools’ compliance with the federal law at the instigation of the California Justice Center — an advocacy organization that maintains parents have a right to be informed by schools of their child’s gender identification.

The U.S. Education Department investigation, according to the state, was focused on a select set of education records for just one group of students — transgender students — and specifically records about their gender identity.

“This singular focus appears, like so many of defendants’ actions, to be motivated by discriminatory animus against transgender people, including transgender students,” California said in the complaint, citing President Donald Trump’s executive order from last year that characterized transgender identity as “false.”

On Jan. 28, 2026, the U.S. Department of Education informed its California counterpart that the state and some of its local education agencies weren’t in compliance with the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act and threatened to cut off federal education funding to the state unless it took corrective actions, including allowing its local educational agencies to adopt “pro-parental notification approaches.”

The state’s attorney general in recent years has successfully sued local school districts in more conservative corners of the state where the boards had adopted policies to “out” transgender students to their parents. These policies can put the students at risk of being kicked out of the house or getting emotionally and physically abused by parents who don’t approve of their gender identification.

California claims that its Education Department has clearly and repeatedly issued guidance to school districts that parents have the right to request to see their children’s education records under the federal law, even if those records contain information related to a student’s sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression.

However, the state says, the Family Education Rights and Privacy Act doesn’t require schools to affirmatively disclose a student’s gender identity or preferred name or pronouns to parents, nor does it mention gender identity.

California seeks a court order confirming the U.S. Department of Education hasn’t established the state’s Education Department is violating the law and an injunction to prevent the federal government from cutting off funding for its schools.

Representatives for the U.S. Department of Education did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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