Conservative School Activists Say They Are ‘Working Directly With the U.S. Department of Education’

A new investigation by the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) into alleged “racially discriminatory programming” in Cherry Creek Schools was seemingly instigated by a local conservative, anti-LGBTQ, pro-charter activist group. The group’s leader now says she’s working together with the federal agency on the investigation.

In a recent news segment on the investigation by CBS Colorado, Lori Gimelshteyn and her organization, Colorado Parent Advocacy Network (CPAN), were credited with filing the Title VI complaints that prompted OCR to investigate. On its official social media accounts, CPAN has also promoted itself as having incited the investigation. 

“The Colorado Parent Advocacy Network investigated it & filed two Title VI complaints. The U.S. Department of Education is now investigating Cherry Creek School District for race-based discrimination. Thank you to everyone who came forward!” CPAN wrote in a post to X, quoting an official post by the U.S. Department of Education.

The OCR accuses Cherry Creek School District of racial discrimination through policies that allegedly support or prioritize students and parents of color over their white peers. A district spokesperson said they “strongly disagree with the characterization of District programming.”

On multiple conservative talk radio programs, Gimelshteyn described these policies as a Marxist attempt to undermine American culture.

“These are strategies to dismantle the West, dismantle American values,” Gimelshteyn said on The Jeff & Bill Show on 710 KNUS. “And we’re seeing this play out, you know, obviously in the professional development, obviously, in the curriculum, we recognize and understand that universities and colleges are also pushing this Marxist narrative of the West, that the values of the West are bad, we need to have this quote unquote ‘equity,’ equal outcomes instead of equality where you have equal opportunity to succeed.”

Originally the Cherry Creek Parent Advocacy Network, CPAN launched statewide in 2022, joining the milieu of similar groups attacking public schools over policies promoting racial justice and LGBTQ inclusion. In multiple interviews, Gimelshteyn has defined her work as advocating for specifically Christian values in public education.

According to Gimelshteyn, CPAN had compiled a wide array of documents turned over by sympathetic educators and obtained via open records requests into the complaints submitted to the OCR – one submitted in February 2025, and another in June 2025. CPAN has not released the findings of its investigations publicly.

In another interview on KHOW radio’s Ryan Schuiling Live, Gimelshteyn went on to express gratitude to the OCR for choosing to follow up on CPAN’s complaints, and said that CPAN was working with them on the investigation. 

“Can I just give a huge congratulations to [the OCR]? They are under so much pressure. They have over, from my understanding, over 28,000 complaints that have come in over the last year on violations of civil rights. And they’re a very small group of individuals, the very talented attorneys. And, you know, it’s just a huge number to investigate. So we’re really grateful that they decided to investigate our two complaints,” said Gimelshteyn on air. “And we are, you know, hopeful. We’re working directly with the U.S. Department of Education. They do want to be very clear. They’re not stating that there’s evidence of wrongdoing. They are stating they’re going to investigate these complaints. And I look forward to these results and anticipate from my opinion that they will find violations of Title VI for race-based discrimination.” [CTR emphasis]

Contacted via email, the Denver field office for the OCR said it does not comment on active investigations.

CPAN did not respond to an emailed request for comment. This story will be updated with any response received.

Education Department positions filled with right-wing activists

Earlier this year, ProPublica reported that, under Trump-appointed Education Secretary Linda McMahon, the Department of Education has worked closely with or even hired activists from far-right school activist groups such as Moms for Liberty and the America First Policy Institute – the latter of which McMahon co-founded. Under McMahon’s leadership, the Education Department has targeted schools it claims are discriminating against white people or continuing to protect transgender students despite federal demands. As part of this campaign, it has put pressure on schools in Denver and Jefferson County, with the investigation into Cherry Creek schools being the most recent.

In some cases, the Education Department has apparently worked with CPAN and other right-wing education groups in Colorado.

As far back as January 2025, Gimelshteyn said CPAN was directly working with the OCR to pursue federal action against schools with LGBTQ-inclusive policies.

“I’m really excited about the executive orders that have come down. And that will be implemented over the next 60 to 120 days in public schools, losing federal funding if they’re implementing any diversity, equity, inclusion or gender ideology into the classroom. So we’re really excited about that,” said Gimelshteyn on KLZ Radio’s Kim Monson Show at the time. 

She continued, “We want to let people know that if this is happening in your children’s school, your grandkids’ school, you can submit an incident report. We are connected with Craig Trainor over at the Office of Civil Rights, who’s the assistant secretary helping to put together cases for review.”

A week before that interview, Trainor, then the office’s acting assistant secretary, had launched a federal investigation into Denver Public Schools for converting a girls’ restroom at Denver East High School into a gender-neutral restroom, which he argued discriminated against girls in violation of Title IX. Trainor has since been officially appointed to serve as the Department of Housing & Urban Development (HUD)’s Assistant Secretary for Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity.

Later that year, Kristy Davis, who runs the El Paso County chapter of Moms for Liberty, made posts in a private Facebook group that indicated members of her organization were pursuing a similar course of action to CPAN in their local schools: compiling documentation to report to the OCR.

“I will be creating a task force to review SEL [Social-Emotional Learning] curriculums in search of DEI [Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion], and we will be reporting them to the OCR. If you or anyone you know is interested in joining this task force, please PM me!” she wrote.

Jefferson County activists likely connected

Earlier this year, Jeffco Public Schools was hit with its own wave of threats from the federal government over its trans-inclusive policies. A report from the OCR alleged to have found “up to 61 boys in girls sports” in Jeffco, and concluded that the district had violated Title IX. However, the OCR never said how it calculated that figure; the claim was based on Jefferson County’s academic rosters, which catalogue gender identity but not sex assigned at birth. 

Lindsay Datko, leader of the Jefferson County-based activist group JeffCo Kids First (JKF), has also made multiple posts indicating a connection between her organization and the OCR going back well before the Title IX investigation.

In June of last year, Datko wrote in JKF’s Facebook group that, after JKF filed a complaint with the OCR about JeffCo Schools’ travel accommodation policies for transgender students, they collaborated with members of the anti-trans activist group Gays Against Groomers, who “flew our documentation straight to Washington D.C. and Linda McMahon.” The OCR opened a Title IX investigation into the overnight travel policy, which culminated in the office’s threats against the district in March.

In a Jan. 28, 2026, post to the same Facebook group, Datko said that the OCR had communicated directly with JKF in response to complaints they had filed.

“The U.S. Dept of Ed Office of Civil Rights connected with us today and confirmed they are working on a ‘direct investigation’ for overnight travel issues as well as looking into our McKinney Vento Homeless Assistance Act concerns!” Datko wrote.

Last month, JKF got an even more direct nod from the federal government, though not from the Department of Education: Datko announced that Harmeet Dhillon, who leads the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice (DOJ), will headline her group’s annual fundraising gala.

JKF did not respond to an emailed request for comment. This story will be updated with any response received.