Thornton Fractional Superintendent Ray Williams says he learned about an hour before the public that his south suburban school district would be under investigation as the Trump administration looks into whether “sexual orientation and gender ideology” content is included in Pre-K-12 classrooms.
“So then everybody’s scrambling, trying to figure it out,” Williams said following Thornton Fractional District 215’s May 13 board meeting, adding that he had not received more information in the nearly two weeks since the U.S. Department of Justice’s April 30 news release.
Williams said at that point, leaders of some of the other 36 Illinois school districts named in the investigation began texting each other, hoping to gain more insight into why the U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division was targeting them.
The only link they could find was having received a grant helping to fund weapons detection systems and other school security measures, Williams said.
“It’s because it’s their money, so that was kind of like, we figure, a way in, and then you can kind of ask whatever you want,” he said. “I’m not 100% sure, but that’s kind of the buzz that we have.”
Thornton Fractional District 215 received a $500,000 grant through the Department of Justice’s COPS Office’s School Violence Prevention Program in 2024, according to the program’s grant award list.
The School Violence Prevention Program provides funding “to improve security at schools and on school grounds in the grantees’ jurisdictions through evidence based school safety programs and technology,” according to the program’s website.
About $73 million was available to school districts and other municipalities throughout the country in fiscal year 2025, providing funding up to 75% for safety measures including coordination with law enforcement, training for local law enforcement officers to prevent student violence, metal detectors, locks, lighting, and other deterrent measures, technology for expedited notification of law enforcement during an emergency, and any other measure that the COPS Office determines may provide a significant improvement in security.
Nine of the 10 Illinois school districts that received grants through the COPS School Violence Prevention Program for 2024 and all 14 of the districts that received the grants for 2025 are listed as under investigation in the Department of Justice news release.
The news release said if the school districts under investigation are found to have included “sexual orientation and gender ideology” content in classroom instruction, then it would examine whether schools have informed parents of their “right to opt their children out of such instruction.” The department said it would also look into whether girls’ sports teams and access to locker rooms, bathrooms and other “single-sex intimate spaces” are restricted by biological sex.
The Justice Department also said the investigation will examine whether the districts are adhering to the current federal guidance under Title IX.
Oak Lawn-Hometown District 123 Superintendent Paul Enderle confirmed in an emailed statement Tuesday that his district “received correspondence from the U.S. Department of Justice Civil Rights Division initiating a Title IX compliance review involving certain district curricula, policies, practices, programs, and activities.”
Enderle did not respond to further questions about the district’s Title IX policies or federal grant awards.
District 123, like Thornton Fractional District 215, received a $500,000 grant through the Department of Justice’s COPS Office’s School Violence Prevention Program in 2024.
The Justice Department’s news release did not clarify why the listed school districts are under scrutiny or whether any particular incident prompted their investigation. It also did not include a definition or example of what counts as “sexual orientation and gender ideology” content.
The department did not respond to requests for comment Tuesday.
ostevens@chicagotribune.com
