The Trump administration launched two federal investigations into school districts in Colorado and Washington state over allegations that a teacher forced same-sex students to kiss in class and that a high school Pride Month display included vials of testosterone, moves the Department of Education tied to defending parental rights.
The Department of Education announced the directed investigations on Tuesday, targeting Denver Public Schools and the Bethel School District in Washington state. In Denver, federal investigators are examining whether a high school French teacher required students of the same sex to kiss each other in front of their classmates as part of a graded assignment. In Washington, investigators are looking into a Pride Month display at Graham-Kapowsin High School that included vials containing an unknown liquid, later identified as testosterone. Both probes invoke the Protection of Pupil Rights Amendment, a federal law requiring schools to notify parents before students are surveyed or evaluated on sensitive topics including sexual behavior. The Denver case also falls under Title IX.
Kimberly Richey, the Department's Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights, did not hold back. Fox News Digital reported her statement framing the Denver allegations as potential sexual assault:
"Schools have an obligation to prevent and address sexual assault. Yet in Colorado, school personnel are alleged to have compelled the sexual assault of minor students by forcing them to engage in blatantly sexualized conduct in class. It is abhorrent and the Trump administration will fully investigate this perverse incident to protect students' safety and vigorously uphold students' rights across America."
The Denver investigation centers on Jennifer Honka, a French language and culture teacher at Northeast Early College, a high school within the Denver Public Schools system. An independent review, conducted by a state administrative law judge and obtained by CBS Colorado, found that Honka allegedly directed students to kiss during in-class skits, and that the students she selected were consistently female.
The review noted that Honka's class had a nearly 50-50 split between boys and girls. Yet one student "could not recall Honka choosing a boy actor." The skits carried names like "The Neighbors Saw Everything" and "The Boring Kiss," and participation counted toward students' performance grades, the New York Post reported. One student who refused to participate received a zero.
That detail alone should concern any parent. A student faced a grading penalty for declining to kiss a classmate at a teacher's direction. The independent review described the classroom dynamic bluntly: Honka's rule of "the answer is always yes" created a coercive environment in which students felt they had no real choice.
The review documented how one student, deeply uncomfortable, went ahead and kissed another student at Honka's direction. That student later shared a meme among classmates featuring Honka's picture and the caption "she makes girls kiss." The meme circulated widely. The student eventually reported the skits to a chemistry teacher at the school in April 2024.
Administrative Law Judge Keith J. Kirchubel, who conducted the independent review, wrote that even setting aside the question of physical force, Honka's choice of scripts "forced them to express their preferences and consent about a very personal and sexualized activity on the spot in front of their peers." That finding cuts to the core of the matter: students in a public school classroom were put in a position where refusing a teacher's sexual directive carried academic consequences.
The Trump administration has pursued a broader agenda of reasserting parental authority and religious liberty in public institutions, including a recent sweeping update to federal religious liberty protections issued by the Department of Justice. The Denver investigation fits squarely within that framework.
Denver Public Schools said it placed Honka on administrative leave "immediately after learning of student concerns with this teacher in March 2025." But the independent review documented a student reporting the skits to a chemistry teacher in April 2024, nearly a full year before the district says it acted. That gap raises an obvious question: how long did the school know, and why did it take so long to respond?
The district's spokesperson, Scott Pribble, told Fox News Digital that DPS completed "a thorough investigation" and that a state administrative law judge conducted an independent review. The DPS Board of Education voted 7-0 on May 20 to consider firing Honka for "incompetence and neglect of duty." The board subsequently voted unanimously to terminate her employment.
Pribble's statement emphasized the district's priorities:
"The safety, emotional well-being and dignity of our students are the absolute highest priorities of DPS. We deeply appreciate the bravery of the students who came forward and the staff who acted immediately as mandatory reporters."
That language sounds reassuring. But the federal government is now investigating whether Denver Public Schools met its legal obligations under Title IX, the federal law prohibiting sex-based discrimination in schools, and whether parents were ever notified that their children would be evaluated on content involving sexual behavior. The Department's announcement stated plainly that its Student Privacy Policy Office "will investigate whether parents were notified about this student evaluation and whether parent or student opt-outs or complaints were ignored."
In other words, the district may have fired the teacher, but the federal government wants to know whether the system around her failed first. A unanimous board vote to terminate one employee does not answer whether the institution itself met its obligations to students and parents.
The New York Post also reported that Honka appears to have subsequently obtained a position at an elementary school in a neighboring district, a detail that, if confirmed, raises its own set of concerns about how school districts share information about terminated employees.
The second federal investigation targets the Bethel School District in Washington state, where officials discovered vials of testosterone in a Pride Month display at Graham-Kapowsin High School in early June. Some vials were empty. Others still contained "a small amount of unknown liquid."
The district said the vials were "entirely unauthorized and did not receive approval from school leadership or administration." Administrators removed them immediately and turned them over to the Pierce County Sheriff's Office. The district identified the individuals responsible for adding the vials but did not name them publicly.
A Bethel School District spokesperson told Fox News Digital the district is "cooperating in any way we can" with the federal investigation and is "actively reviewing our display oversight protocols." The Department of Education is investigating whether the display violated the Protection of Pupil Rights Amendment, which requires parental notification before students are exposed to surveys or evaluations involving sensitive topics.
The presence of testosterone vials, a controlled substance used in gender transition, in a high school hallway display, without any administrator's knowledge or approval, is the kind of incident that erodes parental trust in public schools. The district's response suggests it recognized the problem immediately. The federal investigation will determine whether the district's protocols were adequate to prevent it in the first place.
Frank Miller, Director of the Student Privacy Policy Office at the Department of Education, framed the broader enforcement push around parental authority. Newsmax reported his statement:
"Parents must be the decision-makers in matters impacting the most intimate parts of their children's lives."
The Department tied both investigations to National Parents' Day and signaled that additional enforcement actions involving parental rights would follow throughout the week. That timing is deliberate, and it reflects an administration willing to use federal investigative authority to hold school districts accountable when local oversight fails.
Both cases share a common thread. In Denver, students endured an allegedly coercive classroom environment for months before the district acted, and the federal government now questions whether parents were ever informed. In Washington, unauthorized materials appeared in a school display without leadership approval, and the district scrambled to respond after the fact. In both instances, the institutions closest to the students, the schools themselves, either missed or failed to prevent the problem.
The Trump administration has made parental rights a consistent priority across multiple federal agencies. The Department of Justice has moved to strengthen religious liberty protections, and federal courts have handed the administration significant wins on education-related questions, including a Fifth Circuit ruling ending in-state tuition benefits for illegal immigrants in Texas. The Education Department's twin investigations fit that pattern: using existing federal law to reassert boundaries that local school districts have blurred or ignored.
Several questions remain unanswered. Jennifer Honka has not made any public statement in response to the allegations or her termination, at least not in any available reporting. The identities of the individuals who placed testosterone vials in the Washington display have not been disclosed. And the scope of the federal investigations, whether they will result in formal findings, sanctions, or policy changes, remains to be seen.
Accountability in public education should not require a federal investigation. But when a teacher can allegedly compel students to kiss each other for a grade, and when vials of testosterone can appear in a high school hallway without anyone in charge knowing about it, the question answers itself. Accountability is exactly what Congress passed these laws to provide, and while Senate Democrats have spent their energy blocking defense spending, the administration is using its authority where it counts: between parents and the institutions entrusted with their children.
Parents send their kids to school to learn French, not to be graded on whether they'll kiss a classmate. When the local adults in the room fail to draw that line, the federal government has every reason to step in.