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OAKLAND — California Attorney General Rob Bonta today issued a statement on the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California granting California’s request for a temporary restraining order, which prevents the U.S. Department of Education (U.S. ED) from withholding $4.9 billion in federal education funding from the California Department of Education (CDE) under claims that CDE “facilitated and promoted the adoption of policies and practices that violate” the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA).
“The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California has granted our request for a temporary restraining order, ensuring the U.S. Department of Education cannot wrongfully withhold crucial funding from the California Department of Education while our lawsuit proceeds,” said Attorney General Bonta. “We will not stand by as the Trump Administration attempts to use baseless claims to attack crucial funding for California schools under the guise of enforcing FERPA. We look forward to making our case in court to secure injunctive relief, ensuring U.S. ED’s flagrant attempt to target transgender individuals and law-abiding local education agencies is fully shut down. We are committed to protecting California schools and securing a discrimination-free educational environment for all students.”
Background:
On March 28, 2025, U.S. ED opened an investigation into whether local educational agencies (LEAs) in California are violating FERPA — a law that grants parents the right to request and review their children’s education records — and whether CDE facilitated and promoted the adoption of policies and practices that violate FERPA, as it pertains to gender-identity related education records. On that same day, U.S. ED recognized in a letter to CDE and other states that, “FERPA does not provide an affirmative obligation for schools to inform parents about any information, even if that information is contained in a student’s education records.”
On January 28, 2026, U.S. ED sent CDE a letter of findings (findings letter) alleging certain CDE policies and practices place pressure on LEAs to enact practices that lead to FERPA noncompliance. Yet the findings letter does not identify a single instance in which a California LEA failed to produce education records in response to a parental request for records under FERPA. The findings letter demands multiple “corrective actions” to achieve FERPA compliance, including requiring CDE to allow school districts to enforce FERPA in a manner that promotes affirmatively notifying parents of any changes to a student’s gender identity, unrelated to education records or a request from a parent for an education record. The letter threatened that U.S. ED would withhold education funding from California if it did not respond to its demands by close of business on February 11, 2026.
Yesterday, Attorney General Bonta filed a lawsuit and a request for a temporary restraining order in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, seeking declaratory and injunctive relief to prevent U.S. ED from enforcing the unlawful finding letter and corrective actions and taking legal action against CDE. That same day, the district court granted the request for a temporary restraining order, preventing U.S. ED from taking the legal action of withholding federal education funding from CDE while the lawsuit proceeds.
