Tag: education

Middle school for LGBTQ+ and bullied students opening in August in Boca Raton FL

Read more at CBS 12 News.

The Acceptance Academy Community School, a private, nonprofit middle school serving LGBTQ+ students, bullied youth, and those who struggle to thrive in traditional school environments, is now accepting applications for the August 2026 semester at its Boca Raton campus.

Serving students in grades 6 through 8, The Acceptance Academy is the first school of its kind in Florida and participates in the Step Up for Students scholarship (voucher) program.

“Students at The Acceptance Academy Community School will receive a strong academic foundation in a safe, inclusive, and welcoming environment,” said Stephen Gaskill, co-founder and president of The Acceptance Academy Foundation, the 501(c)(3) organization that operates the school. “We focus not only on academic excellence but also on character development, giving students the opportunity to learn and grow alongside peers who share similar experiences.”

The need for specialized, supportive educational environments is increasing. According to a recent report from the Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network (GLSEN), many students reported a more hostile school climate during the 2024–2025 academic year amid heightened anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric. Key findings include:

  • Two in three students reported feeling unsafe due to their sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression
  • Only one in three LGBTQ+ students frequently look forward to attending school
  • More than half (53%) experienced LGBTQ+-related discrimination, including restricted access to facilities aligned with their gender identity

“Students succeed when they feel supported—by both their peers and the adults around them,” said Dr. Mindy Koch, Ed.D., co-founder and principal of The Acceptance Academy Community School. “Our classrooms emphasize critical thinking, problem-solving, and real-world application, preparing students to navigate life with confidence.”

The school is located in the heart of Boca Raton and offers access to a state-of-the-art gym, music room, library, extracurricular programs, and after-school activities.

Applications are now open for the August semester. Small class sizes ensure personalized, hands-on learning, allowing every student to actively participate and excel. Students from Palm Beach and Broward Counties are welcome, whether transitioning from public school, private school, or homeschooling.

“There’s a real demand for a safe space for kids to learn and to be themselves and middle school years are particularly the time when kids are starting to grow. That’s why we’re focusing on that age area,” Gaskill said.

“Hopefully a school like this gives them the opportunity to figure out how to negotiate and work together with other people who are not totally like them and be successful in the world,” Dr. Koch explained.

But the idea of a school focused on LGBTQ+ students is also raising questions, including concerns about safety.

“What kind of security measures do you plan to have around the school? Because there may be people who would, you hate to say it, may want to act out against the LGBTQ community if they know a number of students are here,” we asked Gaskill. “Well, certainly we hope that that’s not the case, but we have significant security and the building is secure and I just want to leave it that,” he said.

We also asked people in the community what they think.

“The kids want it then I want it. But realistically speaking, I’m not sure that’s such a good idea. If you’re ridiculed in school, I think you have to learn with it when you’re that age,” said Richard Young, a Boca Raton resident.

“I think we need to support it as a community,” said Sal Cohen, a Wellington resident.

“I think it’s a wonderful idea and very needed,” said Donna Traum, a Boca Raton resident.

Tuition is approximately half the cost of many private schools in Palm Beach County. Tuition is $20,000 a year. With an $8,000 state voucher, families would pay about $12,000. The first day of classes for the 2026–2027 school year is Monday, August 10, 2026.

The Acceptance Academy Foundation also welcomes tax-deductible contributions from individuals and organizations to support its mission.

The Acceptance Academy Foundation was founded by Dr. Mindy Koch and Stephen Gaskill, both of whom bring decades of experience in education and public service and share a commitment to the school’s long-term success.

Dr. Mindy Koch has served in Florida’s education system for more than 40 years as a teacher, department chair, administrator, and principal across elementary, middle, and high school levels in Broward and Palm Beach Counties. An award-winning educator, she has developed curricula, managed faculty, and overseen institutional budgets. She also founded Educational Extra, Inc., a SACS-accredited nonprofit providing summer academic programs. Dr. Koch serves as principal of The Acceptance Academy Community School.

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Ron DeSantis signs law that could strip Florida of Pride celebrations

Read more at the Advocate.

Florida has already largely derailed the promotion of diversity by the state, and a new law now threatens Pride events across the state.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed legislation that prohibits any local government in Florida from making diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts. That’s part of a long battle against so-called DEI in the state, which has already banned the values in higher education. He deployed significant white grievance language as he signed legislation at a ceremony in Central Florida.

“I would think with DEI ⁠the disfavored groups, number one obviously, would be white males and I think they’ve been discriminated against,” DeSantis said.

The bill allows individuals to sue local governments that implement DEI programs.

The legislation, according to Florida Politics, defines DEI as efforts to “manipulate or otherwise influence the composition of employees with reference to race, color, sex, ethnicity, gender identity, or sexual orientation other than to ensure that hiring is conducted in accordance with state and federal anti-discrimination laws.”

But LGBTQ+ advocates have specifically voiced concern that this could shut down Pride events.

“It threatens nondiscrimination ordinances, specialized community health programs, recognizing culturally significant events like Pride Month or Black History Month, and more,” reads an opposition statement from Equality Florida.

Florida Rep. Fabian Basabe, a Republican representing Miami Beach, has suggested otherwise.

“Pride is not under threat, and it definitely isn’t going anywhere,” he said. “If anything, this moment presents an opportunity to both strengthen and expand the event and ensure it continues to thrive for decades to come as a cultural festival that celebrates community, supports local businesses, and contributes to the vitality of Miami Beach.”

Critics say the new law still allows equal opportunity programs and for cultural events to take place in Florida cities. But it doesn’t allow cities to run programs promoting diversity.

“The bill is necessary because cities and counties have been funding and promoting divisive activities under the guise of DEI,” said Florida Sen. Clay Yarborough.

The law goes into effect on January 1.

Equality Florida did convince lawmakers to make carve-outs in the law to allow preservation of the Pulse memorial in Orlando and for states to issue permits, but not promote Pride. But the law remains an existential threat, the group’s leadership said.

“This law is deeply concerning and deliberately vague, sending a clear message that celebrating diversity and supporting LGBTQ Floridians can carry legal and political risk. It targets not only local governments but every community that works to create inclusive, welcoming spaces. Our communities have faced unjust laws before, and responded with resilience, strength, and solidarity,” said Jon Harris Maurer, Equality Florida’s Public Policy Director.

“Equality Florida will continue to stand with local leaders, community organizations, and residents to ensure that LGBTQ people remain visible, celebrated, and supported. Pride will continue, programs that support inclusion will continue, and our communities will remain strong despite attempts to intimidate or silence them.”

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Texas Tech System leader cancels academic programs “centered on” sexual orientation, gender identity

Read more at Texas Tribune.

Texas Tech University System’s chancellor on Friday ordered campuses to phase out academic programs “centered on” sexual orientation and gender identity — a dramatically expanded policy that also places limits on what can be researched and which faculty can be hired.

Chancellor Brandon Creighton’s memo gives provosts until June 15 to identify targeted programs and requires the system’s five universities to freeze admissions and halt students from declaring majors in the phased out programs. Students already enrolled can finish their degrees.

Offerings that appear most likely to be affected include Texas Tech University’s women’s and gender studies undergraduate minor and graduate certificate, as well as women’s and gender studies minors at Midwestern State University and Angelo State University. 

The memo also says graduate theses and dissertations may center on gender identity and sexual orientation only as a temporary exception for currently enrolled students and that future faculty hiring will “prioritize recruitment in alignment with this memorandum.”

Faculty, it says, must recognize only “two human sexes” and not teach  gender identity as a spectrum or more than two genders as fact — policies Creighton introduced last year. 

In core and lower-level undergraduate courses, the memo says instructors generally cannot assign materials that are “centered on” or “include” sexual orientation or gender identity and defined the concepts:

  • “Centered on” is when course content, readings, assignments or lectures that have sexual orientation or gender identity “as the primary subject, main theoretical framework, central narrative or driving pedagogical purpose.” 
  • “Includes” means “these themes are present, but serve only as secondary background context, demographic data points, or minor components of a broader academic subject.” 

If an industry-standard textbook contains such content, the memo says faculty do not have to redact it, but they cannot highlight it, test students on it or spend class time on it. 

The memo makes some exceptions for upper-level undergraduate and graduate courses, including analysis of active public policy and legal disputes, historical subjects such as the AIDS epidemic where sexual orientation or gender identity is inseparable from the topic, datasets that include those variables and some clinical, counseling or psychology instruction.

The memo also says “currently employed faculty members may continue to research and publish topics of their choosing,” but future faculty will be recruited and hired in accordance with the memo’s priorities. 

Jen Shelton, an associate professor of English who has taught at Texas Tech for 25 years, said the provost’s office had repeatedly assured faculty that their research would not be affected. She said this feels like a “betrayal.”

“The good news is I think the whole university has been betrayed. I think even the provost did not expect it to look like this because it’s people from the provost’s office who have been coming to us and saying, ‘Don’t worry. This part is all going to be fine,’” Shelton said in an interview with The Texas Tribune.

Cailyn Green, a Texas Tech junior studying human development with a minor in community, family and addiction science, said the memo left her feeling that the university can no longer provide “an honest education.”

Green said one of her professors would not answer in class whether material about racial disparities in pregnancy outcomes would still be taught, instead asking to discuss it privately. 

“At the rate that we’re going, I’m not going to be able to continue learning everything that I need to know in my degree, and I won’t be able to help people,” said Green, who works in Section 8 housing, helping low-income residents connect with food, health care and other assistance.

Paul Ingram, a Texas Tech associate professor of psychological sciences, said students had been calling him all day, some saying they regretted coming to Texas Tech. He said a graduate student had already dropped out because of the earlier memos and another graduate student is writing a dissertation on gender that, under the new policy, could not be proposed again. 

He said faculty across the university are openly discussing looking for other jobs. 

“Everyone sees that the grass isn’t always greener on the other side, but this grass is looking pretty dead,” Ingram said.

Antonio Ingram, a senior counsel at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, said the memo appears to target perspectives involving gender identity and sexual orientation for political reasons, not academic purposes, raising serious constitutional concerns because public universities cannot discriminate based on viewpoint. 

Antonio Ingram also questioned the memo’s prohibition against teaching “as absolute truth” that people are inherently racist, sexist or oppressive and that “individuals bear responsibility or guilt for actions of others of the same race or sex.” Ingram said there is no definition of “absolute truth,” creating vagueness that may deter teaching about systemic racism, reparations and the history of enslavement.

“I think in many ways, this is a doubling down on a political project that is not meant to help students. It is really meant to uphold a political worldview that, you know, Chancellor Creighton couldn’t enact legislatively and is now doing through his role as chancellor,” Ingram said.

In a statement, Creighton said he and the system’s regents are “focused on ensuring our academic programs are rigorous, relevant, and produce degrees of value.”

“That focus is matched by our unwavering support for the First Amendment and the open exchange of ideas that define a public university. Texas Tech will continue to be a national leader on both fronts,” he said.

Some students have supported the system limiting classroom discussion of sex and gender. In an October interview with the Tribune, Preston Parsons, president of the campus Turning Point USA chapter, said he believed the policy protected students and that professors who disagree should speak up outside the classroom.

“There’s a right and a wrong way to do everything, and I don’t believe the classroom is the right place to do that,” said Parsons, who wasn’t available to comment on Friday’s memo. 

Creighton served nearly two decades as a Republican state lawmaker and authored major higher education reforms before he became chancellor in November. In December, he ordered faculty to submit for review course content touching on race, sex, gender identity and sexual orientation. If campus leaders wanted to keep the information in a course and it was not required for professional licensure, certification or patient care, they had to forward it to the Board of Regents for final review. Regents were expected to take up the issue publicly at their Feb. 26 meeting but did not, leaving professors in limbo.

Speaking at the Texas Public Policy Foundation’s summit in Austin on Thursday, Creighton said Texas Tech had “built an AI algorithm” to help review courses and would release findings within days.

At the summit, Creighton said what some faculty call “academic drift” had left “quite a bit of garbage in curriculum” on university campuses across the country. He said the Texas Tech University System has “a very good plan in place” to address that.

“I believe it will produce the best curriculum in America, and I believe it will be a national model once we’re finished,” he said.

In a news release Friday, the system said that of the 1,403 courses initially identified, only 92 were reviewed by the board of regent’s Academic, Clinical and Student Affairs Committee and fewer than 60 were recommended for modification. Another 299 were “proactively modified” before reaching the committee.

Creighton has framed the push at Texas Tech as a way to steer the university toward degrees that lead to high-paying jobs in high-demand fields. He made the same arguments for bills he wrote in 2023 to ban diversity, equity and inclusion in higher education and in 2025 to expand regents’ control over curriculum.

Shelton said that view misses a central role of college, which is to teach students how to interpret the world around them, ask hard questions and think through unfamiliar problems. This memo, she said, “impoverishes” students “not just as future workers, but as human beings.” 

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Maryland advances sweeping education bill to fill gap as Trump admin dismantles federal protections

Read more at LGBTQ Nation.

As the Trump administration continues to curtail federal education protections – with particular cruelty aimed at LGBTQ+ students – lawmakers in Maryland have advanced a sweeping bill to protect marginalized students against discrimination in virtually all educational institutions in the state.

H.B. 649, named the Advancing Equal Educational Opportunities for All Students in Maryland Act, creates stronger enforcement mechanisms against “discrimination and retaliation” based on “race, color, national origin, ethnicity, ancestry, religion, sex, pregnancy, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, age, or marital status.”

The legislation allows students and families to report discrimination to either the state superintendent or the Maryland Commission on Civil Rights to investigate. It also gives students and families the right to sue an educational institution directly. It broadly defines an educational institution as any pre-K program, elementary school, secondary school, institution of postsecondary education, institution of higher education, or any other program that culminates in a certificate, diploma, or degree.

The bill also says that the state may withhold funding from a school in violation of the anti-discrimination protections and may also withhold funding if a school does not remedy the problem once it’s found.

Cleveland Horton II, the executive director of the Maryland Commission on Civil Rights, told Fox Baltimore that the bill is “about making sure that when Maryland students experience discrimination, there is a clear, reliable, and timely place to turn at the state level.”

“This bill addresses a state-level enforcement gap in education discrimination, particularly in higher education. This bill is not intended to replace the Office of Civil Rights, but again, to provide a state-level parallel safeguard, and to reduce the over-reliance on the federal capacity.”

In written testimony in favor of the bill, the ACLU of Maryland emphasized that passage is “urgent.”

“When the current president was inaugurated in January 2026, there were over 270 pending complaints from Maryland residents through OCR [The federal Office for Civil Rights]. Many or perhaps most of these cases have already been dismissed without an investigation. With the dismantling of USDE and OCR, Maryland must fill the gap to ensure that the civil rights of all Maryland students are protected and upheld.”

The ACLU also pointed out that current Maryland anti-discrimination law does not cover students in higher education: “These students must rely on federal anti-discrimination laws. And with the aforementioned changes at the federal level, Maryland families have fewer practical options for filing complaints with the OCR.”

Religious institutions, on the other hand, have expressed concern.

“We are deeply concerned that H.B. 649 proposes that religious and faith-based schools would have their decisions judged by a State commission that will not respect or consider the sincerely held religious beliefs of the school or, accordingly, their constitutional rights,” the Maryland Catholic Conference said in written testimony, according to Fox Baltimore. “Allowing a commission that is unrelated to educational practices and procedures to literally police faith-based schools regarding broad terms of discrimination, potentially resulting in a cause of action which could result in compensatory or punitive monetary damages, is clearly unconstitutional and an overreach.”

Nevertheless, the bill passed the state House of Delegates 100-35 and is now being considered in the state Senate.

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University of North Texas to cut 70+ programs, including LGBTQ Studies

Read more at Campus Reform.

On March 19, the University of North Texas (UNT) in Denton announced it would cut over 70 courses, including its LGBTQ Studies course, as part of broader budget reductions.

President Harrison Keller and Provost Michael A. McPherson sent a statement detailing the upcoming budget cuts for the fall 2026 semester.

The university plans to eliminate over 70 programs, including courses, minors, and certificates. The cuts are expected to save $45 million. 

The university cited declining enrollment, particularly among international students, as the reason for its significant budget cuts.

The enrollment decline contributed to a $32 million budget deficit for the upcoming fiscal year.

The university will allow currently enrolled students to complete their degree programs. New students will not be able to register for these majors or courses.

The cuts include three master’s programs, one undergraduate major, 25 undergraduate minors, 21 graduate programs, and 21 undergraduate certificates.

UNT ordered a review of its courses last fall as part of the budget planning process.

Some courses, including LGBTQ Studies and Women’s and Gender Studies, were eliminated as part of the budget cuts.

Texas university systems reviewed courses in response to federal directives issued during the Trump administration.

The review was conducted in response to H.B. 229, which recognizes only two genders, male and female. 

UNT has not confirmed whether the law influenced its decision to cut certain programs.

The university also plans to eliminate the Department of Linguistics, citing a “consistent decline.”

UNT said it continues to monitor its strategic budgeting model, which began in fall 2024, amid declining enrollment and sponsored research.

Monitoring the strategic budgeting model has helped identify budgeting issues for the upcoming school year.

The university also has a new strategic plan, Look North UNT 2030.

University officials emphasized the importance of the budget plan in maintaining program quality and financial stability.

Harrison Keller said, “We will continue to make strategic investments for the health of the university. Most importantly, we remain steadfast in our commitment to the long-term success of our students.”

UNT stated it aims to support staff and faculty as part of its long-term planning.

Keller and McPherson added at the end of their letter on March 19 that, “By making these difficult but necessary decisions, we will be able to strengthen the quality and impact of our current academic programs while investing in new areas that help us build momentum for the future.”

Campus Reform has reached out to the university for further comment.

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Supreme Court forces California to allow teachers to out trans kids

Read more at LGBTQ Nation.

The Supreme Court yesterday blocked a law in California that bans teachers from outing trans kids to their parents from going into effect. The decision was 6-3, with the six Republican appointees opposing trans rights and the three Democratic appointees taking the side of trans kids.

The case involves teachers from Escondido Union School District who claim that their Christian faith requires them to out trans kids to their parents. They argue that their “right to exercise [their] own religious beliefs” is being violated by the district policy, which was established in response to 2016 legal guidance from the California Department of Education advising districts not to out students.

Trans and nonbinary youth can be put at risk of parental rejection and homelessness if outed to their parents.

The teachers, who were later joined by several parents in their lawsuit, won their case in a lower court in December, where Bush-appointed Judge Roger Benitez said that California should “trust parents to do the right thing for their child” and let teachers out trans kids to their parents, even in cases where the child fears abuse, neglect, or homelessness as a result. Trans and nonbinary youth are much more likely to experience homelessness compared to cisgender youth.

In early January, a panel of judges on the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals issued a stay to Benitez’s injunction, allowing California to enforce its trans youth protections as appeals work their way through the legal system.

But the teachers appealed to the Supreme Court, which sided with them and granted their emergency request for a stay.

The Court issued an 18-page unsigned ruling that said they believe that the parents are “likely to succeed on the merits” of their religious freedom claim, which was that there is a “right of parents to guide the religious development of their children” that also implies a right to know how their children are presenting their gender at school. The Court said that not outing kids to their parents is an even “greater… intrusion on the parents’ free exercise rights” than schools letting kids read books with LGBTQ+ characters, which the Court also ruled schools couldn’t do in its Mahmoud v. Taylor ruling last year.

In her dissent, Justice Elena Kagan wrote that this case shows how the “emergency docket can malfunction” because the case involved “novel legal questions” that the Court is ruling on with “inadequate briefing.”

“The Court is impatient: It already knows what it thinks, and insists on getting everything over quickly,” she wrote, noting that the federal appeals court hasn’t even ruled on the appeals in the case yet.

On the more substantive issues, Kagan wrote that the Constitution makes no mention of parental rights and that the conservatives on the Court relied on the Due Process Clause, which they usually read narrowly. She pointed out that the idea that women have a right to control their own bodies elicits “outright hostility” from her conservative colleagues when it’s suggested to be part of the Constitution’s due process protections. But now the same conservatives found that that clause gives parents the right to know how their children are presenting their genders at school.

She added that parents’ rights have to be balanced against the “critical interests in the care and education of children” that the state has, and that they needed to follow “ordinary processes” to address that balance.

Outing trans youth to their parents puts them at increased risk of homelessness, according to the Williams Institute. Not only that, they might still be exploring their identities and need to exercise control over their coming-out process.

“Transition isn’t a flick of a switch; it’s a complex, gradual, weaving journey of identity,” Connie Walden, a trans woman, wrote to the New York Times in 2023.

“My own transition started in high school. At what stage between my experimenting with makeup now and then to asking specific friends to call me Connie would I have officially, suddenly, socially transitioned? When should I have been robbed of the right to come out to my own family, to decide when to include them in my own process?”

“I recognize the pain of well-meaning parents who feel that their child kept such a large ‘secret’ from them. Yet with transition being a gradual process of experimentation, there is no big secret. There’s only kids slowly figuring out who they are, like all other kids.”

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Court shuts down “nakedly hateful” law banning LGBTQ+ student clubs in Texas

Read more at LGBTQ Nation.

In a win for LGBTQ+ Texans, a federal judge has temporarily barred a group of public school districts from enforcing the nation’s first law explicitly banning LGBTQ+ student clubs.

Judge Charles Eskridge of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas ruled that the state’s Houston, Plano, and Katy school districts could not enforce state law S.B. 12, which passed last year and was called “one of the most nakedly hateful bills we have had on the floor of this House” by out state Rep. Erin Zwiener (D).

Republicans who supported the bill claimed LGBTQ+-supportive clubs are “sexualizing” children.

“We’re not going to allow gay clubs, and we’re not going to allow straight clubs,” said state Rep. Jeff Leach (R). “We shouldn’t be sexualizing our kids in public schools, period. And we shouldn’t have clubs based on sex.”

S.B. 12 was billed as a “Bill of Parental Rights” and also restricted diversity initiatives in public schools and required more parental notification when it comes to mental and physical health in schools.

It also bans teachers from referring to trans students by their preferred first names, even if their parents support their child’s transition. Students have been deadnamed in some school districts while others have complied with the law by calling trans kids by their last names only.

The lawsuit was filed by the ACLU of Texas, Transgender Law Center, and Baker McKenzie on behalf of the Texas American Federation of Teachers (AFT), the Genders & Sexualities Alliance (GSA) Network, Students Engaged in Advancing Texas (SEAT), a teacher, and two students.  

The plaintiffs argued that the law “censors huge swaths of constitutionally protected speech.”

“This win is bigger than me,” said plaintiff Adrian Moore, a Katy ISD student. “It’s a win for all trans students, and students from all backgrounds in my district. Schools should be places where all students feel safe and supported. I hope this lawsuit sends the message that when the LGBTQIA+ community and our allies work in solidarity, we can make a difference.”

Julie Johnson, Moore’s parent, said the ruling is “evidence that justice can sometimes prevail, that speaking up matters, and that it can have a positive impact in the broader community.”

“In a world that feels like basic human dignity is no longer a given right, it means something to my child that their voice was heard,” Johnson said. “In the weeks to come, Adrian will have a name at school. He will no longer be referred to by only his last name, while other students are referred to on a first-name basis. I will see my child’s name listed on programs and playbills at school events. My child will be seen and recognized as the worthy human being he is.”

J. Gia Loving and Maya LaFlamme, co-executive directors at Genders & Sexualities Alliance Network, said the decision “strengthens Texan trans, queer and Two Spirit youth’s right to gather, build connection and safely exist in their schools.”

“GSAs enable students with the skills to build confidence through leadership roles, create spaces of belonging for their peers, and advocate for justice,” they added. “While this is one battle won, our efforts to protect students’ right to safe, inclusive learning spaces and communities will continue. Today and every day, GSAs are here to stay!”

SEAT executive director Cameron Samuels also celebrated the temporary injunction. “Today’s ruling reminds us that queer and trans students’ resilience and joy are here to stay,” Samuels said. “We won’t stop fighting until all Texas students are guaranteed safe and welcoming school environments.”

The federal Equal Access Act requires federally funded public secondary schools to provide equal access to extracurricular student clubs. While that law was passed in 1984 because Christian activists worried that schools might stop Bible clubs from meeting, it has long been used by GSAs to protect their right to meet on school campuses.

GSAs – Gay-Straight Alliances or Gender-Sexuality Alliances – have been targeted by conservatives ever since they were first formed in the 1980s.

In the late 1990s, when Salt Lake City tried to shut down a local school’s GSA, and when they were told they were legally required to give all clubs equal access to school resources, the school board decided to cancel all extracurricular clubs just to stop the GSA, which eventually led to a federal lawsuit. A federal judge ruled that the school district had violated the Equal Access Act and students’ First Amendment rights, which resulted in the district allowing the GSA to meet again.

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Iowa lawmakers may ban K-12 teaching about gender, sexual identity

Read more at the Des Moines Register.

Iowa’s public K-12 schools would be barred from teaching students about topics related to gender identity and sexual orientation at all grade levels under a bill expanding what critics have dubbed the state’s “Don’t Say Gay” law.

It would subject all of Iowa’s K-12 students to a law Gov. Kim Reynolds signed in 2023 that bans instruction on gender identity and sexual orientation through sixth grade. The wide-ranging education legislation also ordered schools to remove books that depict sex acts.

A Senate subcommittee voted 2-1 Wednesday, Jan. 21, to advance Senate Study Bill 2003, which would extend the prohibition on LGBTQ-related teaching through high school.

“I think just as not all parents want others to teach their children about sex education because it involves family religious beliefs about sexuality, so not all parents want others to teach children about sexual orientation and gender identity because it too involves family religious beliefs about sexuality and sexual ethics,” Sen. Sandy Salmon, R-Janesville, said.

She and Sen. Jesse Green, R-Boone, who introduced the bill, voted to advance it.

Iowa’s 2023 law, Senate File 496, is being challenged as unconstitutional in a federal lawsuit. A federal judge initially granted an injunction blocking parts of the law, including the ban on teaching about gender orientation and sexual identity, while the lawsuit is decided.

But the U.S. Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed his decision, allowing the law to take effect. Attorneys argued the law’s constitutionality in federal court last week.

Sen. Molly Donahue, D-Marion, voted against moving the bill forward, calling it a “distraction” from other issues facing the state.

“Iowans are definitely tired of this type of legislation, and we’re seeing that with the voting records, not just in Iowa but across the United States,” Donahue said. “We should be focused on prioritizing public schools, funding affordability for our people in this state and making sure that we’re balancing a budget in this state that is currently over $1 billion in deficit. We are focusing on the wrong things when we bring bills like this.”

Iowa is one of several Republican-led states, including Florida, with similar prohibitions on classroom teaching about gender identity and sexual orientation.

The bill says that Iowa’s public school districts and charter schools cannot provide “any program, curriculum, test, survey, questionnaire, promotion or instruction relating to gender theory or sexual orientation” to K-12 students.

Similar legislation has not advanced in past years, including in 2025 after a House proposal stalled once it passed out of subcommittee.

Opponents of the bill say ‘LGBTQ people exist’ regardless of classroom instruction

Opponents outnumbered supporters of the bill at the hearing Wednesday at the Capitol, as LGBTQ Iowans and LGBTQ rights groups shared opposition with lawmakers, while religious and conservative groups spoke in favor of the measure.

Kaylara Hoadley, of Mason City, cried as she showed lawmakers a photograph of her 15-year-old nonbinary child, saying the bill does not keep students safe.

As a caseworker for families in crisis, Hoadley said she supports youth who are homeless or facing other crises whose only safe space is their school.

“When the law silences teachers, counselors and staff, vulnerable youth suffer and suicide rates increase. … When does a child’s suicide matter to you?” she asked the Republican senators as her voice wavered.

Melissa Peterson, representing the Iowa State Education Association, said questions remain as to whether the current law is discriminatory toward LGBTQ students as it remains tied up in court and urged lawmakers to oppose expanding the law.

“We want to get back to basics and provide a safe learning environment for every single one of our students as closely to as free from discrimination as possible,” Peterson said.

Damian Thompson, external affairs director for Iowa Safe Schools, said the bill would amplify the existing law’s constitutional problems by applying it to older students who have well-established constitutional rights.

“High school students can vote soon, they can serve in the military and they’re expected to understand complex and social and health issues as they enter adulthood,” Thompson said. “Federal courts have been consistently clear that students do not shed their First Amendment rights when they enter a public school.”

Bethany Snyder, of Urbandale, who has a trans partner and is a lesbian mother to a freshman at Valley High School, said silence isolates children and does not protect them.

“My partner and I grew up in that silence,” Snyder said. “We didn’t see ourselves reflected in school. We learned very early what shame sounds like in the absence of words. High school should prepare students for the real world and the real world. LGBTQ people exist as parents, coworkers, legislators, historical figures and leaders and families like mine and families like hers.”

Her daughter Evelynn Snyder-Maul said she has never received instruction on gender identity in school beyond sharing that she has a trans father and queer mother.

“If I’m telling someone about my family, could I get reported?” Snyder-Maul said. “However, that is the least of my concerns. Lawmakers who want to pass this bill are snowflakes. You think that love is inappropriate and you think that it is forcing kids to believe they like the same gender. If your kid is gay, whether they are taught that gay exists or not, they are still going to be gay.”

Supporters say schools should teach ‘fundamentals,’ not discuss LGBTQ topics

Danny Carroll, a senior policy adviser with The Family Leader and a former state lawmaker, said the bill would “remove unnecessary distraction” from Iowa classrooms.

“I think Iowans have grown a little bit weary of the distraction — and sometimes very loud and profane distraction — that gender theory has brought on, and I think they’re inclined to think perhaps we should return our schools to some of the fundamentals of learning and put this aside,” Carroll said. “I can see no way that this would interfere with teaching goodwill, friendship, respect for each other.”

Patty Alexander, a retired educator from Indianola, said discussing sexual identity is not an educator’s job.

“We do not believe in labeling students or grouping them by sexual preferences,” Alexander said. “We are here to meet their learning needs. We are not mental health counselors, and forcing us to group and label students only divides and causes rifts. Forcing us to discuss sexuality furthers the mistrust of educators between parents and their children.”

Jeff Pitts, representing the Iowa Faith and Freedom Coalition, said the group supports expanding the existing law through high school.

“Our schools are not the place to promote political ideology,” Pitts said.

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California Policy on Disclosing Student Gender Identity Blocked by Judge

Read more at Newsweek.

A federal judge in California has struck down a state policy that prevented teachers from informing parents when their child identified as a different gender at school, calling the rule unconstitutional and a violation of parental and teachers’ rights.

U.S. District Judge Roger Benitez, sitting in San Diego, ruled Monday that California’s policy—meant to protect LGBTQ students’ privacy—improperly restricted communication between parents and educators. The decision delivers a major setback to state officials and LGBTQ advocacy groups that had defended the policy as essential to student safety.

Why It Matters

The ruling stems from a 2023 lawsuit filed by Escondido Unified School District teachers Elizabeth Mirabelli and Lori Ann West, who challenged a district policy requiring staff to keep a student’s gender identity confidential from parents. The pair, represented by the Thomas More Society, a religious liberty law firm, argued that the rule forced them to violate their faith and the trust of parents.

The ruling directly conflicts with California’s Safety Act (AB 1955), signed by Governor Gavin Newsom in 2024, which banned schools from disclosing students’ gender identity or pronouns to parents without the students’ consent.

What To Know

In a 40-page opinion, Benitez said the rules “place a communication barrier between parents and teachers” and “harm the child who needs parental guidance.” He added that such policies deprive parents of their 14th Amendment right to direct the care and upbringing of their children and infringe upon teachers’ First Amendment rights.

“Parental involvement is essential to the healthy maturation of schoolchildren,” Benitez wrote, according to Courthouse News Service. “California’s public school system parental exclusion policies place a communication barrier between parents and teachers… That, this court will not do.”

Benitez’s ruling also issued a permanent injunction, blocking school districts from reinstating similar “gender secrecy” policies. He acknowledged the state’s intent to protect LGBTQ youth from possible abuse or rejection at home but concluded that the policy was overly broad and not narrowly tailored to that goal.

“When the state drops an elephant in the middle of its classrooms,” he wrote, “it is not a defense to say that the elephants are too heavy to move.”

In his order, Benitez framed the issue as a constitutional matter rather than a cultural one.

“Historically, school teachers informed parents of physical injuries or questions about a student’s health and well-being,” he wrote. “But for something as significant as a student’s expressed change of gender, California public school parents end up left in the dark.”

The decision intensifies a legal and political struggle over how schools handle issues of gender identity. Supporters of the Safety Act cited Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data showing that about 25 percent of transgender youth attempted suicide in 2023, underscoring the risks of forced disclosure. LGBTQ groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union and Equality California, have argued that involuntary outing can lead to family rejection, homelessness or self-harm.

Conservative lawmakers and parental rights groups have opposed such secrecy policies. Tech executive Elon Musk also criticized California’s gender identity disclosure law, saying it was among the reasons he decided to move the headquarters of SpaceX and X (formerly Twitter) from California to Texas.

What People Are Saying

Elizabeth Mirabelli and Lori West, in a joint statement shared on Monday: “We are profoundly grateful for today’s ruling. This has been a long and difficult journey, and we are humbled by the support we’ve received along the way. We want to extend our deepest thanks to Thomas More Society and to everyone who stood by us, prayed for us, and encouraged us from the very beginning.”

California State Senator Scott Wiener, on X days before the ruling: “I’ve passed some of the strongest protections for trans people in the country—from safeguarding gender-affirming care to protecting youth and families fleeing hostile states. As the federal government ramps up its attacks, I will always stand between trans people and harm.”

What Happens Next

The California Attorney General’s Office has not said whether it will appeal the ruling to the Ninth Circuit. For now, the court’s decision halts enforcement of policies that restrict teachers from sharing students’ gender information with parents across California’s public schools.

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University dismisses 2nd professor in kerfuffle over anti-trans student’s essay

Read more at LGBTQ Nation.

The University of Oklahoma (OU) recently dismissed a professor for telling students that they wouldn’t be counted absent from her class if they attended an on-campus protest in support of a transgender teaching assistant (TA) who was placed on administrative leave after she failed a student’s essay that referred to trans people as “demonic.” The newly dismissed professor reportedly didn’t give the same option to students who wanted to protest against the trans TA’s reinstatement, OU said.

OU composition professor Kelli Alvarez was accused of viewpoint discrimination for her alleged actions, OU said in an official statement cited by KFOR. OU’s director of first-year composition emailed Alvarez’s students, calling Alvarez’s actions “inappropriate and wrong,” adding, “The university classroom exists to teach students how to think, not what to think.”

The director informed students that they could miss the Friday class to attend either the protest or the counterprotest. The director also noted that Alvarez has been replaced for the remainder of the term, which ends on December 19. OU said it agrees with the director’s actions.

“Classroom instructors have a special obligation to ensure that the classroom is never used to grant preferential treatment based on personal political beliefs, nor to pressure students to adopt particular political or ideological views,” OU wrote in its statement.

At the Friday protest, hundreds of students rallied in support of Mel Curth, a trans TA who OU placed on administrative leave after she gave a student a grade of zero on an essay about a study on gender roles in which the student called trans people “demonic.” The student, Samantha Fulnecky, filed a religious discrimination complaint with OU in November, and the university put Curth on administrative leave.

Students at the protest chanted, “OU shame on you,” “Protect our professors,” and “Justice for Mel,” KOKH-TV reported. Even students who didn’t agree with Curth’s failing grade for the student agreed that Fulnecky’s essay was poorly written and that Curth didn’t need to be put on leave.

At one point in the protest, a Turning Point USA (TPUSA) supporter got in front of the crowd and began counterprotesting.

The OU Chapter of the right-wing young conservatives group published a transphobic tweet saying, “We should not be letting mentally ill professors around students. Clearly this professor lacks the intellectual maturity to set her own bias aside and take grading seriously. Professors like this are the very reason conservatives can’t voice their beliefs in the classroom.”

In her paper, Fulnecky wrote that people aren’t “pressured to be more masculine or feminine,” that she doesn’t see it as a problem when peers use teasing to enforce gender norms, and that “eliminating gender in our society… pulls us farther from God’s original plan.” She also said trans identities are “demonic and severely [harm] American youth.”

In her response, Curth — to whom the OU Department of Psychology recently gave its Outstanding Graduate Teaching Award — wrote that her grade wasn’t because Fulnecky had “certain beliefs,” but rather because the paper “does not answer the questions for this assigment, contradicts itself, heavily uses personal ideology over empirical evidence in a scientific class, and is at times offensive.”

In a statement, OU wrote that it takes First Amendment rights and religious freedoms seriously and began a “full review” of the situation to “swiftly” address the matter, including a “formal grade appeals process” and a review of the student’s claim of “illegal discrimination based on religious beliefs.”

The university also said that Curth had been placed on administrative leave during the finalization of the discrimination review, leaving “a full-time professor” to serve as the course’s instructor for the rest of the semester.

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