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Democrats on Michigan’s State Board of Education rejected a GOP effort Tuesday that was aimed at ending the teaching of gender identity in schools.
Nikki Snyder, a Republican from Goodrich, proposed adding an agenda item for the board’s monthly meeting that would have members vote on a resolution she said would not only end the teaching of gender identity but also end gender “transitioning in Michigan schools.”
The effort failed when the Democratic majority on the board voted against placing the proposal on the agenda. It was the latest attempt by the Republicans on the board to push back against the updated sex and health education standards.
Citing recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions, Snyder and Tom McMillin, a Republican from Oakland Township, alleged that the Michigan Department of Education is violating federal laws with updated sex and health education guidance the State Board approved in November, a claim another board member said was misleading and incorrect. The elected State Board oversees the Michigan Department of Education. Democrats control the eight-member State Board with six seats.
They also cited controversial training materials that came to light in 2022 in which a trainer suggested that teachers can talk with parents about a student expressing suicidal thoughts without having to reveal that gender identity or sexual orientation is a cause of their distress.
During debates in 2018 over State Board guidance to schools on addressing the needs of LGBTQ students, advocates argued that in a small number of cases, revealing to parents that their child is transitioning could put the student in danger. Several Democratic board members argued Tuesday that the language in the 2022 video was acknowledging that reality and wasn’t intended as a blanket suggestion that teachers withhold information from parents.
The attempt comes amid intense national debate about whether schools should teach about gender identity, parents’ rights to opt their children out of such lessons, and parents’ right to know about the gender identity their child uses at school.
In November, the State Board faced backlash for voting to approve updated standards for sex and health education that recommend students be taught to define gender identity, gender expression, and sexual orientation. In Michigan, local school districts aren’t required to align their curriculum to the state standards, though for subjects that are tested on annual exams, most do. Sex and health education are not tested. State law requires that parents be allowed to opt their children out of sex education lessons.
Last week, lawmakers in the Republican-controlled Michigan House passed a bill inspired by the debate over the updated standards that would require legislative approval of standards adopted by the State Board. The legislation isn’t expected to succeed in the Democrat-controlled Senate.
In February, the U.S. Justice Department announced it was investigating three Michigan school districts — Detroit Public Schools Community District, Lansing School District, and Godfrey-Lee Public Schools — to determine whether they had included “sexual orientation or gender ideology content” in any classroom and if parents were notified of their rights to opt their children out of such instruction.
Letters sent to the districts cited the November vote to update sex and health education standards, with the DOJ saying those updates may violate Title IX rules. Snyder said during Tuesday’s meeting that she wrote a letter to the DOJ asking the department to investigate Michigan but didn’t mention specific schools.
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled last week in a California case that parents have a right to know about their child’s gender identity at school. The ruling in the Mirabelli v. Bonta case overturns a California law that required teachers to use students’ preferred names and pronouns at school and barred them from disclosing students’ gender identity to parents without the students’ consent.
Last year, the Supreme Court ruled in the Mahmoud v. Taylor case in Maryland that parents have the right to opt their children out of lessons that violate their religious beliefs.
McMillin urged the board to take up the proposed resolution in part because local districts should know that they “could be obstructing justice” if they withhold gender identity information from parents.
Ellen Cogen Lipton, a Democrat from Huntington Woods, noted that the Mirabelli v. Bonta ruling was an emergency ruling on the so-called shadow docket. Lipton, an attorney, said the shadow docket is for cases that are not intended to make broad-based policy decisions.
Lipton said that to describe the ruling in the Mirabelli v. Bonta as making policies or recommendations in other states as unconstitutional “is legally incorrect.”
“But it’s coming,” Snyder responded.
GOP and Democrat members accuse each other of politicizing education
State Superintendent Glenn Maleyko said he sought guidance on the California ruling from the Michigan attorney general’s office. He said there are differences between the California law and Michigan’s recommendations, including the fact that Michigan allows districts to choose whether to adopt the recommendations and for parents to opt their children out of lessons they object to.
“We don’t have a policy or protocol that mandates the implementation of those training materials or standards,” Maleyko said.
The resolution Snyder proposed called on the State Board to remove the health education guidelines adopted in November and notify all districts of that removal. The proposed resolution also noted that it would be “the first step in notifying the Michigan Department of Education that the continuous effort to politicize public education in our state will end and to receive this declaration as the repeated call to return to a model of education that teaches children how to think and not what to think.”
Board President Pamela Pugh said the resolution is an example of politicizing education that spreads confusion and misinformation.
“Our responsibility is to provide safe supportive respectful learning environments for all children,” Pugh said. “This resolution really is another attempt to rehash what the board has debated.”
Lori Higgins is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Detroit. You can reach her at lhiggins@chalkbeat.org.
Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools.