ANNAPOLIS, Maryland — The U.S. Justice Department's Civil Rights Division sued Anne Arundel County Public Schools (AACPS) on Tuesday, October 27, alleging in federal court that the Maryland district's gender-identity policies secretly let students change their name, pronouns and “gender identity” at school without their parents' knowledge or consent, and blocked parents from education records federal law entitles them to see. The complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland, says the policies violate the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) and the Protection of Pupil Rights Amendment (PPRA). The school district — 128 schools and more than 84,000 students around Annapolis — answered within hours: it “disagrees with the allegations and stands by its compliance with FERPA and PPRA,” and called the decision to sue “regrettable.”
Source: U.S. Department of Justice
“Schools should not discuss preferred pronouns or ‘gender identity’ with a student without parental notification and consent,” said Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon of the Civil Rights Division, announcing the suit. “Parents should not be lied to, stonewalled, or branded as ‘safety concerns’ when they ask to see the education records that reveal what schools are secretly doing to their children. This Department will end illegal school policies that keep parents in the dark.” The Justice Department is asking the court for an injunction that would stop the board from enforcing the policy, and for parents to be given an opportunity to challenge and correct errors in their children's records, according to the complaint as reported by The Baltimore Banner.
Source: The Baltimore Banner, Oct. 27
What the complaint alleges
The Justice Department alleges that AACPS directs staff to solicit, document and act upon a student's self-identified name, pronouns and gender identity without notifying parents; that the district designates gender-identity information as “confidential” and instructs staff to withhold it from parents based on what the complaint calls the “unilateral and unfounded” assertion that informing parents would pose a “safety concern” to the student; and that the district reports gender-identity information to the Maryland State Department of Education without parental notice or an opportunity to challenge its accuracy. “These policies require staff to facilitate a student's social transition at school, to memorialize that transition in education records, and to obscure or withhold this information from parents,” the complaint states, as quoted by the Banner.
The complaint also tells one family's story, using Doe pseudonyms. During the 2025–26 school year, the Justice Department says, AACPS questioned students one-on-one about their preferred names and pronouns; Jane and John Doe then twice received emails from teachers referring to their daughter by a male name and pronouns. When the parents confronted the district, the complaint alleges, AACPS misled them about helping their daughter present as male at school, later admitted the misstatements, but still declined to give the parents details and refused to hand over the child's relevant education records. The Banner's account of the complaint adds that, when the parents tried to exercise their rights to their daughter's records, staff told them some records required an appointment and others a subpoena. The district has not publicly addressed the specific family account; its statement speaks to the lawsuit as a whole.
The district's answer: “We disagree” — and it had already changed the policy
In a statement issued Tuesday evening, the school system said it learned of the lawsuit that day and was “reviewing it closely.” “AACPS disagrees with the allegations and stands by its compliance with FERPA and PPRA,” it said. “Moreover, the school system has been in regular contact with the Department of Justice in a good faith effort to resolve their concerns while adhering to our obligations to all students, parents and staff.” The district called it “regrettable that the Department chose to pursue litigation rather than continuing constructive dialogue,” and said that, with the case now before a federal court, it will address the claims in its court filings and have no further comment. District spokesperson Bob Mosier previously told the Banner that Anne Arundel was among Maryland's first school systems to build a framework supporting LGBTQIA+ students and works closely with their parents: “We have steadfastly supported all of our students and take seriously our obligations to follow privacy laws.”
The lawsuit also arrives after the district had already moved. The years-old policy drew intense scrutiny over the summer from the Trump administration, conservative legal activists and some parents; the district previously did not require parental permission to use a high school student's chosen name and pronouns. At the start of this school year, AACPS revised the policy: a student's gender identity will no longer be treated as confidential medical information, and staff were told they may no longer use a transgender student's preferred name if the parents oppose it. Superintendent Mark Bedell wrote to the community in August: “No policy, guideline, or practice may limit or otherwise interfere with parental rights under FERPA. This includes any information maintained in education records that relates to gender identity, transgender status, sexual orientation, preferred name, or preferred pronouns.” The Justice Department sued anyway — a sequence the district's “good faith” language plainly protests.
The two federal laws at the centre of the case
FERPA, the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, gives parents the right to inspect and review their children's education records and to correct or delete inaccurate information in them; schools that violate it risk federal education funding. PPRA, the Protection of Pupil Rights Amendment, gives parents the right to consent — or refuse consent — before schools collect sensitive personal information from minor students. The Justice Department says this lawsuit is the latest in a series of Civil Rights Division steps against school policies it says trample those parental rights, and it directs parents who believe their rights were violated to the U.S. Department of Education's complaint portal at studentprivacy.ed.gov. Before the lawsuit, the Education Department had already accused Anne Arundel of violating federal law by classifying a student's gender-identity information as “confidential medical information” that cannot be shared with parents, Reuters reported.
The Justice Department wants an injunction stopping enforcement of the policy and a chance for parents to challenge and correct their children's records. The district wants the case resolved on its court filings — it says it already complies with FERPA and PPRA, had been talking to the Department in good faith, and changed its policy in August so gender identity is no longer treated as confidential medical information and staff cannot use a preferred name over parental objection.
The case lands in a wider national fight. The Trump administration has opened federal probes into educational institutions and threatened to freeze federal funding over transgender policies, Reuters noted, and the president has issued a series of executive actions on gender identity, including a directive that the federal government will recognise only two sexes. The Banner noted that the complaint was filed exactly one week before Election Day, as the president seeks to rally his conservative base ahead of midterms that will decide control of Congress — context the district itself did not comment on. For Anne Arundel's 84,000 students and their parents, though, the operative question is narrower and legal: what the district's policy, old and revised, actually did with names, pronouns and records, and whether that crossed the lines FERPA and PPRA draw. Those are the questions a federal judge will now answer.
Source: Reuters, Oct. 27
What is solid
- The Justice Department sued Anne Arundel County Public Schools on October 27 in federal court in Maryland, invoking FERPA and PPRA
- The district publicly disagrees with the allegations, says it complies with both laws, and says it had been in regular contact with the Department in good faith
- The district revised its policy at the start of the school year: gender identity is no longer treated as confidential medical information, and staff may not use a preferred name if parents oppose it
- The Justice Department is seeking an injunction; no court has ruled on the allegations
What is only claimed
- Whether the district's policy, as applied, violated parents' rights under FERPA and PPRA — alleged by the Justice Department, denied by the district
- Whether the district misled the one family described in the complaint and unlawfully withheld records — the complaint alleges it; the district has not publicly addressed the family's specific account
What happens next
The Board of Education must now answer the complaint in the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland, and a federal judge will decide whether to grant the requested injunction while the case proceeds — no hearing date had been announced in the first day's reporting. The district has said it will make its arguments in those filings and comment no further for now. Parents in the district who believe their own FERPA or PPRA rights were violated can file a complaint with the U.S. Department of Education's Student Privacy Policy Office, the route the Justice Department pointed to in its announcement. Whatever the court decides will bind one of Maryland's largest school systems — and, because the Civil Rights Division describes this as one of a series of such cases, the reasoning is likely to be read closely by districts across the country that are writing their own rules on names, pronouns and records.