Parents Defending Education Files Joint Complaint Against Milwaukee Public School District for Violations Against FERPA and PPRA

Secretary McMahon and Attorney General Bondi,

The Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty (“WILL”) and Alliance Defending Freedom (“ADF”) are non-profit, public interest law firms and policy organizations dedicated to, among other things, protecting parental rights. Parents Defending Education (“PDE”) is a national grassroots membership organization working to reclaim our schools from activists promoting harmful agendas.

We write to notify your offices of an unlawful policy of the Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Public School District (“MPS”) to hide student gender transitions at school from their parents. MPS’s policy is attached to this complaint and available on the District’s website.1 As explained in more detail below, MPS’s policy facially violates the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (“FERPA”) and the Protection of Pupil Rights Amendment (“PPRA”).

President Trump’s January 29 executive order entitled, “Ending Radical Indoctrination in K-12 Schooling,” directed the Department to develop a plan, within 90 days, to prioritize enforcement of parental rights, and, specifically, FERPA and the PPRA.2 Consistent with that order, we respectfully urge the Department to open an investigation into these plain violations of federal law and to revoke MPS’s federal funding if MPS will not rescind these policies and stop hiding gender transitions at school from parents. The Department should also require MPS to notify the parents of any child for whom MPS maintains a secret gender support plan without the parents’ awareness.