On Thursday, America First Legal (AFL) launched its “Parents’ Rights Toolkit” to help families protect their children from the woke leftist teachers and bureaucrats in America’s K-12 schools, colleges, and universities, and to provide the incoming Trump Administration with a roadmap for action. AFL’s toolkit contains resources, including template letters, to help parents file civil rights complaints with the U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights under Title IX, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex; Title VI, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, or national origin; and the Protection of Pupil Rights Amendment (PPRA), which protects parents’ right to know about and opt out of divisive race and gender-related lessons and curricula.
Title IX
Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 prohibits discrimination “on the basis of sex.” It applies to all state education agencies, elementary and secondary school systems, colleges and universities, vocational schools, proprietary schools, state vocational rehabilitation agencies, libraries, and museums that receive federal financial assistance. In other words, all public and many private K-12 schools, as well as nearly all public and private colleges and universities, must comply.
“Sex” under Title IX means biological sex, male or female. This was the ordinary public meaning of the term at the time of Title IX’s enactment, and, as the Supreme Court of the United States has stated, “sex, like race and national origin, is an immutable characteristic determined solely by the accident of birth.” Frontiero v. Richardson, 411 U.S. 677, 687 (1973). Thus, Title IX protects girls’ sports, bathrooms, and locker rooms from cross-dressing males and woke teachers and administrators who use children to advance the teachers’ and educators’ extreme transexual psychosocial agenda.
Title VI
Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 is the Federal law that protects individuals from discrimination “on the basis of” race, color, or national origin in programs that receive Federal financial assistance. “Federal financial assistance” includes federal funds, training, and technical and other assistance in a very broad range of areas, including elementary, secondary, and higher education, health care, social services, public welfare, and law enforcement. Among other things, in operating a school, college, or other federally assisted program, a recipient of Federal financial assistance cannot, on the basis of race, color, or national origin, either directly or through contractual means, deny program services, aids, or benefits; provide a different service, aid, or benefit, or provide them in a manner different than they are provided to others; or segregate or separately treat individuals in any matter related to the receipt of any service, aid, or benefit. All K-12 public schools, and nearly all private K-12 schools, and public or private colleges or universities, are subject to Title VI.
PPRA
The PPRA applies to all public schools, and protects parents’ right to review curriculum, and to both prior notice of and the right to opt out of many divisive race- and gender-related lessons, surveys, and activities of certain activities at any school that receives federal funding. The PPRA recognizes that parents have the right to inspect “any instructional material” used as part of their child’s education. A parent must proactively request the material; the school does not have an obligation to share it without being asked first. Parents should demand that schools disclose teacher training materials designed to affect or direct student instruction as “instructional material.”
The PPRA also provides schools must have prior parental consent to ask children questions about:
- Political beliefs or affiliations
- Mental problems or challenges
- Sexual behavior or attitudes
- Illegal, antisocial, self-incriminating, or demeaning behavior
- Critical appraisals of people with close family relationships
- Relationships with lawyers, physicians, and ministers
- Religious beliefs or practices
- Income level (unless it’s asked simply regarding eligibility to participate in a program)
If the school wants to distribute or administer a survey created by an outside entity (not the school), the parent has the right to review the survey first, along with any supplemental material (including teacher’s manuals) that comes with it. The parent must request this; the school does not have to provide copies without being asked first. Critically, the PPRA applies to all gender and race-related materials.
AFL’s toolkit was created to help parents speak up for civil rights. Now is the time for them to do — these claims will provide the incoming Trump Administration with a critical roadmap for ending woke indoctrination and discrimination in our schools and colleges. AFL will keep fighting to protect our children and the rule of law.
Statement from Ian Prior, America First Legal Senior Advisor:
“For the past four years, public schools have been indoctrinating children with radical racist, anti-semitic, and transgender ideologies. As these schools have blatantly violated civil rights law, the Biden Administration worked hand in glove to federalize these illegal practices. That ends in 2025, as the incoming administration has made clear that it will crack down on these woke schools that abuse their federal funds to implement insane ideologies that hurt children. The America First Legal Parental Rights Toolkit empowers parents to assist the federal government in identifying where the law is being broken so that we can turn our failing education system around,” said Ian Prior.
Access the Parents’ Rights Toolkit here.
