Trump DOJ investigating ‘gender ideology’ in 3 dozen Illinois school districts

CHICAGO (Capitol News Illinois) — Three dozen Illinois school districts are the latest in a string of public schools, colleges and universities across the country named as subjects of federal investigations into whether the institutions teach about sexual orientation and “gender ideology,” and whether parents can opt out of such curriculum.

The inquiry, announced by the U.S. Department of Justice on Thursday, will also “assess” whether the 35 school districts around the state, plus Chicago’s largest charter school network, allow transgender students to use single-sex bathrooms or participate in competitive sports.

The DOJ’s notice did not say what prompted the investigation or why the districts — which range from rural schools with extremely small enrollment to one of the largest districts in Illinois — and the agency did not respond to a request for clarification. More than half of the school districts are in the Chicago area, though the list does not include any of the large suburban school districts that have attracted attention in recent years for litigation over trans students’ access to bathrooms and locker rooms.

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But Thursday’s announcement did point to a June 2025 U.S. Supreme Court decision that requires school districts to allow opt-outs for LGBTQ-related lessons in the classroom, plus a more recent March ruling blocking a California policy that allowed schools to keep a student’s gender transition private from their parents.

“This Department of Justice is determined to put an end to local school authorities keeping parents in the dark about how sexuality and gender ideology are being pushed in classrooms,” Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon said in the news release.

Dhillon, who advised Trump’s 2020 reelection campaign and rose to prominence as the face of several unsuccessful lawsuits against California’s COVID-19 pandemic restrictions, is the administration’s key lawyer on civil rights issues. As assistant attorney general for civil rights, Dhillon oversees the “Title IX Special Investigations Team” — a joint effort between the DOJ and U.S. Department of Education that was launched last year.

“Supreme Court precedent leaves no doubt: Parents have the fundamental right and primary authority to direct the care, upbringing, and education of their children,” Dhillon said. “This includes exempting their children from ideological instruction that contradicts their values or decisions about their children’s health and best interests.”

In a statement, Gov. JB Pritzker dismissed the inquiry as the Trump administration continuing to “punish states the president does not like,” calling it a “sham investigation.”

“The Civil Rights Division used to investigate actual discrimination concerns to ensure all individuals are treated equally under the law, but they’re now focused on belittling the rights and humanity of LGBTQ+ communities,” he said.

In 2019, Pritzker signed legislation requiring Illinois public schools’ history curriculum “include a study of the roles and contributions of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people in the history of this country and this state,” but Thursday’s news release made no mention of the law.

String of investigations

The DOJ’s announcement is similar to more than a dozen from the Trump administration since the president began his second term last January, most citing Title IX, the sweeping 1972 federal law that prohibits sex discrimination in education.

One of his first official acts back in power was signing an executive order dubbed “Keeping Men out of Women’s Sports,” which threatened to “rescind all funds from educational programs that deprive women and girls of fair athletic opportunities.”

That included school lunch funds from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, as the state of Maine found out in early 2025 after a public spat between the president and Gov. Janet Mills at the White House over the executive order. After the Department of Education launched an investigation into the state’s education agency and subsequently froze the funding, a judge ordered the USDA to unfreeze the funds, and the agency settled the suit.

In recent months, Trump’s DOJ and Department of Education have launched investigations into K-12 school districts and state education authorities in New Hampshire, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, Vermont, Washington and Maine again.

Inquiries announced last year in states like New York, Oregon and Washington are ongoing, though the administration has claimed it found evidence of violation of Title IX in Kansas and Colorado school districts. The administration has also launched, and in some cases wrapped up, similar assessments of public universities and community colleges.

ACLU of Illinois cites wrong interpretation

Ed Yohnka with the ACLU of Illinois said the Trump administration is wrongly interpreting both federal and state law, which he said are both “clear that students have an ability to play on sports teams and to use private areas consistent with their gender identity.”

Yohnka also said it was ironic that the Trump administration, brought to power by Republicans who generally oppose government overreach, was trying to limit local control of school districts.

“None of these schools need some ideological culture warrior in Washington, D.C., telling Watseka what their curriculum should be,” he said. “The notion that Justice Department is going to launch investigations and divert money for education because the president signed a piece of paper is just a misuse of our tax dollars.”

Yohnka said he wasn’t aware of any pattern among the three dozen districts the DOJ is investigating, but one school official from rural northwest Illinois has an “emerging operational theory.” In a social media post Friday, Oregon Community Unit School District 220 Superintendent PJ Caposey said he didn’t have “definitive answers” from the DOJ as to why his district was included, he posited it may have something to do with the districts’ participation in a federal School Violence Prevention Program grant.

“To be absolutely clear, this does not confirm that grant participation is the reason for inclusion, nor can we state that as fact,” he wrote. “It is simply one possible connection being explored as we work to better understand the broader picture.”

Capitol News Illinois is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news service that distributes state government coverage to hundreds of news outlets statewide. It is funded primarily by the Illinois Press Foundation and the Robert R. McCormick Foundation.