D.C. Schools Push Gender Curriculum From Indicted Organization

D.C. Public Schools teaches fifth-graders to call the male reproductive system a "person with a penis" and the female system a "person with a uterus" — lessons drawn from an organization whose curriculum references the Southern Poverty Law Center, a group federal authorities have indicted on 11 fraud counts. Parents face a rigid mandate: their children cannot opt out. The lessons reveal how radical activists have captured public education even as federal prosecutors allege those same networks funneled millions to extremist causes.

The curriculum comes from Advocates for Youth's Rights, Respect, Responsibility program. It instructs fifth-grade teachers to correct students who refer to biological systems as "boy" or "girl" systems. A teacher note reads, "Ideally, you should point out that you know that each person's body can be different than the gender they know they are" and directs educators to "use the more inclusive language of 'person with a penis' and 'person with a uterus.'"

Defending Education exposed the materials in a June 8 report, calling them "extreme" and "inappropriate" for children. Erika Sanzi, senior director of communications for Defending Education, said the lessons "aren't just inappropriate for children but they reveal that DCPS has embraced an ideology so extreme that it avoids using words like male and female and man and woman when teaching about reproduction and sexual anatomy."

DCPS states online that Sexual Safety Lessons are "required under the law" and students "cannot opt out of this content when it is being taught." The policy contradicts the district's own 2013 curriculum document, which lists opt-out availability with a parent signature. "The fact that students can't be opted out of this madness just adds insult to injury," Sanzi said.

The DCPS curriculum explicitly references the Southern Poverty Law Center's "Teaching Tolerance" program, now operating as "Learning for Justice," as a fourth-grade resource for gender-inclusive puberty education. The district's website adopts the Teaching Tolerance definition for "bias incidents." SPLC's Learning for Justice program reaches 169 districts across 42 states and D.C., according to a May 2026 Defending Education report.

The federal case against SPLC unfolded on April 21, when a grand jury charged the organization with 11 counts of wire fraud, false statements to a federally insured bank, and conspiracy to commit concealment money laundering. The Department of Justice alleges SPLC secretly funneled more than $3 million in donated funds to individuals connected with the Ku Klux Klan, Unite the Right, and other violent extremist groups between 2014 and 2023. A June 2 superseding indictment added that $4.1 million in tax-exempt funds paid informants who recruited members and purchased cross-burning materials and KKK robes.

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche called the allegations clear. "The SPLC is manufacturing racism to justify its existence," Blanche said. "Using donor money to allegedly profit off Klansmen cannot go unchecked."

FBI Director Kash Patel described the operation as a "massive fraud operation." He said SPLC "lied to their donors, vowing to dismantle violent extremist groups, and actually turned around and paid the leaders of these very extremist groups — even utilizing the funds to have these groups facilitate the commission of state and federal crimes."

SPLC interim CEO Bryan Fair called the charges "false." "We are outraged by the false allegations levied against SPLC — an organization that for 55 years has stood as a beacon of hope fighting white supremacy and various forms of injustice to create a multi-racial democracy where we can all live and thrive," Fair said. Attorney Abbe Lowell asserted, "The SPLC did not lie to its donors, it did not mislead banks it did business with, and its informant program prevented violence and saved lives."

SPLC pleaded not guilty and moved to dismiss the case as a "vindictive prosecution." The organization placed Defending Education on its Hate Map in 2022, labeling the group "extremist."

Advocates for Youth, the developer of the DCPS curriculum, has received more than $30 million from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services since 1995, along with millions from the Ford Foundation, Hewlett Foundation, and George Soros's Open Society Foundations. AFY served as a primary author of the 2020 National Sex Education Standards and partners with Planned Parenthood through the Future of Sex Education coalition. The organization also acts as fiscal sponsor for AMAZE, which produces sex-education materials for children as young as four.

The lessons intensify by high school. A ninth-grade "What if…?" lesson presents abortion as a standard pregnancy option, instructing students that up to 49 days they can take medication and after that they need a doctor. Homework directs students to Planned Parenthood's website. Both National Education Association President Becky Pringle and American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten posted public support for SPLC following the indictment.

Nicole Neily, president of Defending Education, said the reach of these materials extends far beyond D.C. "Unbeknownst to parents, the Southern Poverty Law Center has been poisoning pupils' minds around the country for years with its toxic curriculum," Neily said.

The gap between DCPS's current no-opt-out policy and its 2013 document showing opt-out availability underscores a broader pattern of radical ideology imposed on children through taxpayer-funded institutions, without parental consent. Rhyen Staley, director of research at Defending Education, called for immediate action. "No organization that labels concerned parents as 'extremists' and members of 'hate groups' should have its biased content used in K-12 schools," Staley said. "District leaders should end the use of this organization's materials and ideas."