WASHINGTON — Parental involvement in children’s education is essential to rooting out gender ideology from schools, a senior Department of Education (ED) official told the Daily Caller News Foundation.
While the department under the Trump administration has been strongly enforcing Title IX, a rule protecting women from discrimination in schools and other institutions receiving federal funds, many administrators are determined to undermine the rule and cater instead to transgender individuals. ED is committed to fighting back against schools that defy the administration’s orders, but emphasized the importance of parents gaining awareness of what is happening in classrooms and joining the fight, the official told the DCNF at the ED building Wednesday.
“This is why empowering parents and girls is so important too, because those same Title IX administrators, if every single parent actually knows what they’re doing and is pissed about it, it’s going to be a lot harder for them to find those loopholes, because there’s way more light on it, and more people paying attention,” the official, who opted not to be named publicly, told the DCNF. “And so that’s our hope as well.”
Secretary of Education Linda McMahon also expressed the necessity of congressional action when speaking to the DCNF at the department on Wednesday. When asked how the department planned on combating attempts to sidestep the rule or future administrations changing the definition, the secretary told the DCNF it is necessary to further codify the definition of sex into law.
“There’s still this sort of fluctuating conversation about what is a guy, what is a woman,” McMahon told the DCNF. “But the President with his EO was very clear about that, men are men and women are women, and it’s how they are born. And there is no discrepancy there, but there are still those schools and other entities that are challenging. So we do need Congress to make that clear delineation.”
A senior department official further emphasized this need, telling the DCNF ED “would absolutely be supportive” of efforts to further codify the definition of sex into law.
“That’s something where we really need Congress,” the official stated. “I mean, that is the downside of executive powers. We can do everything we possibly can for the next three and a half, seven and a half, however many years. We need Congress, and I know there’s been several proposals to that end that we would definitely be supportive of, because I would like to see it.”
Trump’s day-one executive order declared the federal government would only recognize two biological sexes. ED further doubled down on this definition, notifying schools that the department would be enforcing the rule based on sex rather than the Biden administration’s definition which included “gender identity.”
The DCNF recently exposed several Title IX coordinators and consultants for universities planning ways to skirt the Trump administration’s definition of the rule, plotting the creation of an “LGBTQ+ Church” in an attempt to use free speech and religious freedom rights to further cater to transgender students.
Parents have been essential to shedding light on the infiltration of left-wing ideology in schools, especially since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic when kids were forced to learn from home, providing parents a window into their child’s education. Many were shocked to find gender ideology, diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) and racially discriminatory topics embedded in curriculum.
Attorney General Merrick Garland under the Biden administration also directed the FBI to target parents who protested at school board meetings over critical race theory and gender ideology in classrooms. House Republicans ultimately concluded that the move had “no legitimate basis.”
The administration has been cracking down against schools and even entire states that fail to commit to protecting women, pursuing legal action against several violators and threatening defunding. ED recently reclaimed June as “Title IX month,” breaking from the previous administration’s declaration of “Pride month.”
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