The Trump administration has launched a sweeping enforcement effort against school districts that enable teacher sexual misconduct, opening investigations into 20 districts and threatening to strip federal funding from those that fail to comply with existing laws, according to an exclusive report from Breitbart News.
The new initiative, led by the Department of Education (ED), zeroes in on a practice known as “passing the trash” — when schools quietly shuffle accused educators to other campuses or even recommend them for jobs in neighboring districts rather than reporting abuse or pursuing discipline.
In a statement, the Department said it has observed a “troubling and recurring pattern” of credible sexual abuse reports going uninvestigated, with suspected offenders being transferred to new schools or roles within the same district.
McMahon’s ‘Dear Colleague’ Letter
The push follows a sharply worded “Dear Colleague” letter sent to school districts last month by Education Secretary Linda McMahon, which Breitbart said it obtained. In it, McMahon blames “institutional silence and complacency” by districts and teachers’ unions that she says are committed to shielding their members from disciplinary action.
McMahon called such behavior a failure of districts’ “moral and legal responsibilities to parents and students.” She warned that districts refusing to follow federal law could lose federal funding — money virtually every district depends on for local programs.
“This epidemic of nationwide sexual abuse in our schools must end,” she wrote.
The effort leans on two decades-old federal laws, according to an anonymous ED source cited by Breitbart. The administration has framed the crackdown as an aggressive use of existing authority, not new legislation.
California and LAUSD in the Crosshairs
California and Los Angeles are emerging as the epicenter of the federal push. The ED opened a civil rights investigation into the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) in May, alleging that administrators and the teachers’ union were “protecting sexual predators at the expense of students.”
That probe centers on a collective bargaining agreement with United Teachers of Los Angeles that guarantees teachers accused of serious misconduct — including maintaining sexual or romantic relationships with students, creating child pornography, or failing to report suspected abuse — are reassigned rather than removed from student-facing roles during investigations.
The Department said it will open similar investigations if it becomes aware of equivalent agreements elsewhere.
McMahon also highlighted state-level failures. She cited reporting that found at least 67 cases this decade in which California did not revoke the teaching licenses of educators after districts determined they had sexually harassed students or engaged in other sexual misconduct. Twelve of those teachers remain working in education, according to the report.
Victims Lobby in Sacramento
This past week, victims and student safety advocates converged on Sacramento to lobby California Democratic lawmakers who were pushing a measure to cap damages in lawsuits against government employees, including teachers. The measure ultimately failed, but lawmakers did manage to raise the standard of proof for older cases.
Breitbart noted that mainstream media largely ignored a news conference on the issue, even though Chris Hansen — the longtime TV host known for catching would-be child predators — appeared to support the advocates.
A ‘Rampant’ Problem, Researchers Say
The administration’s stepped-up enforcement comes amid research suggesting the problem is far larger than commonly acknowledged. McMahon cited a landmark 2004 study showing that nearly one in ten students will be subjected to sexual misconduct by the time they graduate high school. That figure, experts say, is likely higher due to widespread underreporting.
Charol Shakeshaft, who authored that study for the ED and later wrote the book Organizational Betrayal, now puts the percentage at 17 percent — a seven-point increase. Her follow-up research, along with work by John Jay College researcher Elizabeth L. Jeglic, describes the problem as “rampant” across U.S. schools of every size, location, and type.
A separate ED-contracted study of 50 million students in nearly all of the country’s 100,000 schools, updated in 2022, found a nearly 100 percent increase in educator rape or attempted rape since the 2004 baseline.
Shakeshaft lamented to Breitbart that legacy media has largely ignored the trend for two decades, focusing instead on scandals in the Catholic Church and the Jeffrey Epstein case. She predicted the current crisis back in 2006, writing in National Review that the physical sexual abuse of students “is likely more than 100 times the abuse by priests.”
Underreported and Mischaracterized
Experts say media coverage that does emerge often fixates on salacious stories — typically female teachers having sex with teenage boys — while the data show male teachers account for the majority of misconduct. Predators also frequently target students outside their own classrooms, using online platforms to groom victims and then involving their own pupils, researchers told Breitbart.
Chris Hansen, whose stings have ensnared more than a dozen teachers over the years, recounted a striking case this year: a 61-year-old former teacher of the year in the Baltimore school system showed up at one of his undercover houses expecting to have sex with 15-year-old boys. The man had since risen to lead the district’s advanced placement and gifted learning program. He is now in a Baltimore jail awaiting trial on solicitation charges, Hansen said.
Shakeshaft and Jeglic also pointed to less lurid but pervasive grooming behaviors that colleagues often notice yet fail to report in order to preserve school “harmony.” All 50 states have mandatory reporting laws, but peer reporting remains spotty and ineffective, they said.
John C. Manly, a California and New York attorney who has won major settlements in school abuse cases, told Breitbart that administrators “just ignore” the law when it comes to reporting misconduct. His firm secured $140 million in damages against LAUSD in the notorious Mark Berndt case, in which the teacher was accused of abusing elementary students for decades and feeding cookies containing his semen to children.
As the federal government escalates its oversight, the battle lines are clear: the Trump administration insists it will use the purse strings to force compliance, while critics have accused it of trying to undermine public education. But for the Education Department, the message in McMahon’s letter is blunt — comply with federal law or risk losing funding.
Source: www.breitbart.com — https://www.breitbart.com/education/2026/09/05/exclusive-trump-education-department-goes-on-the-warpath-against-school-districts-enabling-teacher-sex-crimes/