Late last week, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) announced that it is investigating 36 school districts in Illinois, including several here in northern Illinois. WNIJ news director Jenna Dooley asked education reporter Peter Medlin to break it down…
Jenna Dooley (JD): Peter, what is the DOJ investigating?
Peter Medlin (PM): They say they're looking into if schools include sexual orientation or gender ideology content in any classes. They're also looking into if parents can opt their kids out of certain things. They're examining the bathrooms trans kids are allowed to use and the sports teams they're allowed to play on.
It’s kind of part of a series of investigations targeting gender and specifically trans students that you're seeing in both higher ed and K-12 education. The fact that Illinois students are being investigated, this also could be a message sent to Governor JB Pritzker with all the public arguments he's gotten into with President Trump over the years.
(JD): Why is the DOJ looking into these 36 districts in particular?
(PM): That’s a real question here. It's a really odd mix of suburban and rural schools. At first, the school districts had no idea why they were chosen. All 36 got the same letter, so there were no specific allegations pertaining directly to their school district. Some were like, "Maybe this is just a random sample of school districts,” and all the districts’ leaders got together to see, okay, like, "What do we have in common?"
All 36 have received grants from the Department of Justice over the past couple years and, particularly, they received grants through its School Violence Prevention Program. So, it's completely unrelated to this case or gender. Schools use it to help train local law enforcement and improve security, like adding locks and metal detectors, stuff like that.
A lot of these schools already received and spent the money, so it's not something the DOJ could hold over their head and threaten to take away, but because they'd previously gotten that grant funding, it seems like that's why the Department is looking into them, like, "If you took money from us, you're subject to additional audits or scrutiny."
(JD): But that's something the districts had to figure out on their own. The DOJ release didn't say anything about their participation in that school safety grant program, right?
(PM): No, and that's what was so frustrating for some of the school leaders at these districts. I talked to PJ Caposey, who's the superintendent at the Oregon School District, which is one of the school districts on the list.
“I do know," said Caposey, "it's been a PR nightmare that could have been avoided with one line and the press release from the Department of Justice saying these districts are subject to additional scrutiny because they accepted $500,000 in a grant from us."
He says the PR disaster is that now they're receiving a lot of negative attention and messages accusing them of indoctrinating kids and then messages angry that they're not fighting back against the feds hard enough.
“I've gotten lots of emails from kids," Caposey said, "which that's always pulls at your heartstrings, when your students are saying, ‘Why aren't you out telling people and advocating for our group,’ and then vice versa, getting from other kids, ‘Why aren't you out advocating?’ And so, we're in this position where we have to middle the message."
Of course, the Facebook comments are rough, and it's on a district page that’s usually, like, pictures of the girls’ soccer team, and their students are seeing some of this.
(JD): Can you talk a little bit more about what the DOJ says it's investigating at these schools?
(PM): Another tricky thing is they say they're investigating if the districts have implemented the Illinois’ health and sex education standards. So, the DOJ is saying "If you're in compliance with the state, you're out of compliance with the federal government," which makes schools walk this weird tightrope where you're trying to be as compliant as possible with everyone, especially if your funding is being threatened.
The investigation also wants to make sure parents can opt their students out of instruction in any class that touches on sexual orientation or gender identity. Caposey says parents do have a lot of opportunities to opt their kids out of certain things. It's even on the registration paperwork where parents could say, "I want to opt my kid out of any social emotional learning surveys for the year’" or anything like that.
(JD): So, what comes next?
(PM): That's another thing that's frustrating for these schools. They don't know. The DOJ just told them, "Don't delete anything." So, now they have to wait. Maybe nothing will happen for a year. In the meantime, there's the time and the money school districts have to spend on lawyers and, of course, there's the PR disaster ripping through their community and isolating some of the kids who are seeing hateful messages come through.
At the end of the day, Caposey says he's not mad at the DOJ. If they have the right to audit them, then so be it. The state has the right to disagree with the feds too, but he also says that these districts kind of got tossed under the bus by the DOJ, and it could have all been avoided with just a few lines clarifying why they were being investigated.
List of Illinois school districts the Department of Justice is investigating:
- Atwood Heights School District 125
- Bloomington Public Schools District 87
- Bluford Unit School District 318
- Buncombe Consolidated School District 43
- Center Cass School District 66
- Central School District 104
- Community High School District 155
- Country Club Hills School District 160
- Crete-Monee School District 201-U
- DeKalb Community Unit School District 428
- East Dubuque Unit School District 119
- Elmwood Park Community Unit School District 401
- Freeport School District 145
- Galena Unit School District 120
- Gillespie Community Unit School District 7
- Iroquois County Community Unit School District 9
- Leyden Community High School District 212
- Lick Creek Community Consolidated School District 16
- Lyons School District 103
- Martinsville Community Unit School District C3
- Meridian Community Unit School District 223
- Noble Network of Charter Schools
- North Chicago Community Unit School District 187
- North Palos School District 117
- Norwood Elementary School District 63
- O’Fallon Community Consolidated School District No. 90
- Oak Lawn-Hometown School District 123
- Odin Public School District 722
- Oregon Community Unit School District 220
- Pembroke Community Consolidated School District 259
- Reavis Township High School District 220
- Ridgeview Community Unit School District 19
- Stockton Community Unit School District 206
- Tamaroa School District 5
- Thornton Fractional Township High School District 215
- Will County School District 92
