On March 20, 2025, Parents Defending Education sued the U.S. Department of Education in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. The lawsuit asks the court to make the Department follow the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), a federal law that gives the public the right to request records from federal agencies.
From July 2022 through February 2024, PDE’s president, Nicole Neily, sent five FOIA requests to the Department on PDE’s behalf. Each request was straightforward and limited in time and scope. The first, sent on July 12, 2022, asked for records about the National Parents and Family Engagement Council, an advisory council the Department created in June 2022. The Department has not answered any of the five requests.
Read the full complaint below:
