By Lily Guiney
Gongwer News Service
Superintendent of Public Instruction Glenn Maleyko issued a statement of support Thursday for three school districts which will be the subjects of U.S. Department of Justice compliance reviews over sexual education content, calling out a false assertion made by the federal government in its announcement of the civil rights inquiries.
The DOJ announced Wednesday that it was opening investigations into Lansing Public Schools, Detroit Public Schools Community District and Godfrey-Lee Public Schools in Wyoming. Letters sent from the department’s Office of Civil Rights cited the health standards approved in late 2025 by the State Board of Education, falsely stating the standards are requirements for school districts and that the state is mandating instruction on gender identity and sexual orientation.
“The U.S. Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division is aware that on November 13, 2025, the Michigan State Board of Education revised the Michigan Health Education Standards Guidelines to require that local school districts add instruction on ‘sexual orientation,’ ‘gender identity,’ ‘gender diversity,’ and ‘’gender expression’ to their health and sex education curriculum beginning as early as grade six (i.e., for 11- to 12-year-old students),” the letter from Assistant U.S. Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon said. “Unlike sex education, health is a required class for graduation in the state of Michigan, with no opportunity for parents to opt their children out of receiving instruction.”
The letters from DOJ go on to say the standards approved by SBE may contravene executive orders signed by President Donald Trump and a U.S. Supreme Court decision in Mahmoud v. Taylor, and demand the districts preserve and provide to DOJ by April 6 an extensive series of records spanning what appears to be any possible mention of terms like “sex,” “human reproduction,” “human sexuality,” “genitalia,” “sexual orientation,” “gender identity,” “gender diversity,” “gender spectrum,” “gender expression,” “gender fluidity,” “gender nonconformity,” “hormone blockers,” “puberty blockers,” “transitioning,” or “LGBTQIA+” in any school materials, events, communications and documents.
Michigan law requires health class for graduation but allows parents to opt their students out of sexual content within instruction. The only sexual education required by law in the state is awareness instruction on HIV and other sexually communicable diseases. The new health standards do not supersede or change state law.
Mayleyko responded to the department’s requests on Thursday, saying the three districts are being “targeted” by the Trump administration and reiterating the legality of the health standards as a non-required set of recommendations offered by the Department of Education.
“If we want to put students first and make sure children can learn, we need all students to be healthy and safe and feel included. The much-needed updates to health education guidelines – which the Department of Justice falsely said are state requirements – help local districts make decisions on how they can support student health,” Maleyko said. “As required by state law, MCL 380.1507, local school boards set health curriculum with input from local sex education advisory boards. Local control remains in place. Parents retain the right to decide whether their children should participate in sex education instruction.”
The letters sent to the three districts did not say why the schools were singled out for the compliance reviews, besides a reference to them “receiving financial assistance from DOJ and accordingly ha(ving) certain obligations under federal law.”
The end goal of the reviews, Dhillon said in the letters, is to determine whether the districts are in compliance with Title IX.
“This Department of Justice is fiercely committed to ending the growing trend of local school authorities embedding sexuality and gender ideology in every aspect of public education,” Dhillon said in a statement.
“Supreme Court precedent is clear: parents have the right to direct the religious upbringing of their children, which includes exempting them from ideological instruction which conflicts with their families’ sincerely held religious beliefs. And Title IX demands that we guard the safety, dignity, and innocence of our youngest citizens – our children – by ensuring that they have unfettered access to bathrooms and locker rooms of their biological sex.”
Maleyko said MDE will “work closely” with the three districts in their efforts to select curricula that “best supports the needs of their students consistent with state standards and guidelines” but said the expectation of DOJ’s compliance review that districts provide an untold number of documents and materials to the federal government in such a short time is unrealistic.
“The breadth and scope of the federal requests, premised on a mischaracterization of the Michigan Health Education Standards Guidelines adopted by the State Board of Education, place a significant administrative burden on local districts and risk diverting time and resources away from the core mission of educating students,” he said.
Rep. John Fitzgerald, D-Wyoming, said he’s concerned about the sheer volume of demands in the DOJ’s letter becoming a large disruption to school environments, particularly Godfrey-Lee in his district, which is significantly smaller and has less staff than DPSCD or LPS.
“My immediate concern is for the students and what’s going to happen in that school district now,” he said. “I think the disruption to students due to staff and superintendents and other administrators having to take time away from students and families is going to impact that district.”
House Speaker Matt Hall, R-Richland Township, had a different take.
“I think it’s a good thing. I’m very happy to see that happening. We need to handle these things appropriately,” Hall said. “Most people don’t want their young kids learning about some of these things at very young ages. And so hopefully the Department of Justice gets to the bottom of it, and if it’s going on, they put a stop to it.”
Beyond conservative and religious groups, which opposed the health standards when they came before the board and cheered the DOJ’s decision to open compliance reviews, much of the reaction in Michigan on Thursday was simply confusion as to why these three districts were selected.
Fitzgerald said although he hasn’t examined the Godfrey-Lee health curriculum himself, he isn’t aware of any stark differences between what the five-school district is doing instructionally and what others around the state are doing.
The mention of DOJ funding received by the schools also raises questions – the department offers some competitive grants to local education agencies, mostly related to school safety or youth violence prevention, but it’s not clear if the three districts were recipients of funds from any of those programs and would thus see federal dollars pulled if they were found to be not compliant with Title IX.
All public schools in Michigan are recipients of federal dollars in some form, making it additionally murky as to why these three are subjects of an investigation. Fitzgerald said it was “perplexing” to see.
“I don’t have a great understanding as to how and why these districts were chosen,” he said. “Understandably, we see east, central and west. We see a small, medium and large option, but for Godfrey-Lee to be singled out in this case, I don’t understand exactly how that district rose to the level of awareness for this type of case.”
Gongwer News Service
Superintendent of Public Instruction Glenn Maleyko issued a statement of support Thursday for three school districts which will be the subjects of U.S. Department of Justice compliance reviews over sexual education content, calling out a false assertion made by the federal government in its announcement of the civil rights inquiries.
The DOJ announced Wednesday that it was opening investigations into Lansing Public Schools, Detroit Public Schools Community District and Godfrey-Lee Public Schools in Wyoming. Letters sent from the department’s Office of Civil Rights cited the health standards approved in late 2025 by the State Board of Education, falsely stating the standards are requirements for school districts and that the state is mandating instruction on gender identity and sexual orientation.
“The U.S. Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division is aware that on November 13, 2025, the Michigan State Board of Education revised the Michigan Health Education Standards Guidelines to require that local school districts add instruction on ‘sexual orientation,’ ‘gender identity,’ ‘gender diversity,’ and ‘’gender expression’ to their health and sex education curriculum beginning as early as grade six (i.e., for 11- to 12-year-old students),” the letter from Assistant U.S. Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon said. “Unlike sex education, health is a required class for graduation in the state of Michigan, with no opportunity for parents to opt their children out of receiving instruction.”
The letters from DOJ go on to say the standards approved by SBE may contravene executive orders signed by President Donald Trump and a U.S. Supreme Court decision in Mahmoud v. Taylor, and demand the districts preserve and provide to DOJ by April 6 an extensive series of records spanning what appears to be any possible mention of terms like “sex,” “human reproduction,” “human sexuality,” “genitalia,” “sexual orientation,” “gender identity,” “gender diversity,” “gender spectrum,” “gender expression,” “gender fluidity,” “gender nonconformity,” “hormone blockers,” “puberty blockers,” “transitioning,” or “LGBTQIA+” in any school materials, events, communications and documents.
Michigan law requires health class for graduation but allows parents to opt their students out of sexual content within instruction. The only sexual education required by law in the state is awareness instruction on HIV and other sexually communicable diseases. The new health standards do not supersede or change state law.
Mayleyko responded to the department’s requests on Thursday, saying the three districts are being “targeted” by the Trump administration and reiterating the legality of the health standards as a non-required set of recommendations offered by the Department of Education.
“If we want to put students first and make sure children can learn, we need all students to be healthy and safe and feel included. The much-needed updates to health education guidelines – which the Department of Justice falsely said are state requirements – help local districts make decisions on how they can support student health,” Maleyko said. “As required by state law, MCL 380.1507, local school boards set health curriculum with input from local sex education advisory boards. Local control remains in place. Parents retain the right to decide whether their children should participate in sex education instruction.”
The letters sent to the three districts did not say why the schools were singled out for the compliance reviews, besides a reference to them “receiving financial assistance from DOJ and accordingly ha(ving) certain obligations under federal law.”
The end goal of the reviews, Dhillon said in the letters, is to determine whether the districts are in compliance with Title IX.
“This Department of Justice is fiercely committed to ending the growing trend of local school authorities embedding sexuality and gender ideology in every aspect of public education,” Dhillon said in a statement.
“Supreme Court precedent is clear: parents have the right to direct the religious upbringing of their children, which includes exempting them from ideological instruction which conflicts with their families’ sincerely held religious beliefs. And Title IX demands that we guard the safety, dignity, and innocence of our youngest citizens – our children – by ensuring that they have unfettered access to bathrooms and locker rooms of their biological sex.”
Maleyko said MDE will “work closely” with the three districts in their efforts to select curricula that “best supports the needs of their students consistent with state standards and guidelines” but said the expectation of DOJ’s compliance review that districts provide an untold number of documents and materials to the federal government in such a short time is unrealistic.
“The breadth and scope of the federal requests, premised on a mischaracterization of the Michigan Health Education Standards Guidelines adopted by the State Board of Education, place a significant administrative burden on local districts and risk diverting time and resources away from the core mission of educating students,” he said.
Rep. John Fitzgerald, D-Wyoming, said he’s concerned about the sheer volume of demands in the DOJ’s letter becoming a large disruption to school environments, particularly Godfrey-Lee in his district, which is significantly smaller and has less staff than DPSCD or LPS.
“My immediate concern is for the students and what’s going to happen in that school district now,” he said. “I think the disruption to students due to staff and superintendents and other administrators having to take time away from students and families is going to impact that district.”
House Speaker Matt Hall, R-Richland Township, had a different take.
“I think it’s a good thing. I’m very happy to see that happening. We need to handle these things appropriately,” Hall said. “Most people don’t want their young kids learning about some of these things at very young ages. And so hopefully the Department of Justice gets to the bottom of it, and if it’s going on, they put a stop to it.”
Beyond conservative and religious groups, which opposed the health standards when they came before the board and cheered the DOJ’s decision to open compliance reviews, much of the reaction in Michigan on Thursday was simply confusion as to why these three districts were selected.
Fitzgerald said although he hasn’t examined the Godfrey-Lee health curriculum himself, he isn’t aware of any stark differences between what the five-school district is doing instructionally and what others around the state are doing.
The mention of DOJ funding received by the schools also raises questions – the department offers some competitive grants to local education agencies, mostly related to school safety or youth violence prevention, but it’s not clear if the three districts were recipients of funds from any of those programs and would thus see federal dollars pulled if they were found to be not compliant with Title IX.
All public schools in Michigan are recipients of federal dollars in some form, making it additionally murky as to why these three are subjects of an investigation. Fitzgerald said it was “perplexing” to see.
“I don’t have a great understanding as to how and why these districts were chosen,” he said. “Understandably, we see east, central and west. We see a small, medium and large option, but for Godfrey-Lee to be singled out in this case, I don’t understand exactly how that district rose to the level of awareness for this type of case.”
––––––––––––––––––––
Subscribe to the Legal News!
https://www.legalnews.com/Home/Subscription
Full access to public notices, articles, columns, archives, statistics, calendar and more
Day Pass Only $4.95!
One-County $80/year
Three-County & Full Pass also available
