Harmeet Dhillon Cornered a Maryland School for Hiding One Student’s File From Her Own Mother

A staff email let a Maryland mother discover her daughter was secretly living as a boy at school.

When she asked why, the principal refused to explain.

Now Harmeet Dhillon has handed the district a deadline it might not survive.

Parents Say the School Stonewalled Them Over Their Own Daughter's Records

Anne Arundel County Public Schools has a policy letting any student use a different name or pronoun at school without their parents' knowledge.

An assistant principal refused to turn over the child's own education records when the family pressed for answers.

The Department of Education says that refusal broke the law.

Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon sent the district a letter on July 29 laying out exactly how.

She wrote that AACPS "adopted a blanket, district-wide practice of nondisclosure untethered to FERPA's enumerated exceptions."

Parents couldn't see their daughter's full file, weren't asked before information went out, and never got a hearing to fix what the record said.

Dhillon added on X that districts should follow the law now or expect to see the department in court.

Seven Days to Reverse Course or Face Federal Court

The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act gives parents the legal right to see their own child's school records.

Anne Arundel County classified gender identity information as confidential medical data, walling it off from parents except in cases the district itself decided required disclosure.

Dhillon's letter calls that classification a paperwork trick, one that shields the policy rather than the student.

The district now has seven days to scrap the policy, hand over the withheld records, and tell staff they can no longer freeze parents out.

Miss the deadline, and the letter warns AACPS could be sued and lose federal funding.

Anne Arundel isn't facing this alone.

The Department of Education and DOJ announced the same week that Ann Arbor Public Schools in Michigan has until August 10 to explain why it shouldn't face identical enforcement.

Anne Arundel County and Ann Arbor both stayed silent when Fox News Digital reached out for comment.

Maryland Joins a Growing List of Districts Caught Hiding Gender Transitions

This isn't the first time the federal government has used FERPA to go after a school system for hiding a child's gender transition.

The Education Department has run the same kind of investigation into California, Maine, and Washington state, accusing all three of running policies that kept parents out of the loop.

Earlier this year, the Supreme Court sided with parents in Mirabelli v. Bonta, ruling 6 to 3 that parents fighting California's gender-secrecy policies are likely to win their case.

That decision didn't bind every court in the country, but it put every school district on notice.

A database kept by the conservative group Defending Education has found more than 1,000 districts nationwide with policies that limit what parents are told about their own kids.

Anne Arundel County is just the newest name on that list, and now it's the one facing an actual deadline.

The Filing Cabinet Isn't a Substitute for a Parent

This is what happens when a school district decides it knows a child better than her own parents do.

A principal who won't answer a mother's question and an assistant principal who won't hand over a file aren't protecting anyone, they're hiding behind a filing cabinet.

FERPA has existed since 1974 for exactly one reason, so parents can see what the school knows about their own kid, and Anne Arundel just found out the Trump administration isn't looking away anymore.

Sources:

• Robert Schmad, "Trump DOJ Corners School District With 7-Day Ultimatum Over Trans Policy Keeping Parents in the Dark," Fox News, August 3, 2026.
• Catherine Salgado, "Harmeet Dhillon Declares a 'New Day for Parental Rights'," PJ Media, June 17, 2026.
• The Federalist Staff, "It's Past Time For USED To Pull Taxpayer Funds From Schools That Secretly Trans Kids," The Federalist, July 31, 2026.
• U.S. Department of Education, "Trump Administration Cracks Down on School Districts Secretly 'Transitioning' Students and Hiding It From Parents," U.S. Department of Education, July 28, 2026.