The Los Angeles teachers union has a written contract guaranteeing that teachers accused of sex crimes against children get reassigned – not fired.
Linda McMahon found out about it.
Now the Trump Education Department just put 20 school districts on federal notice – and California is the worst offender.
The Deal That Sparked a National Crackdown
The federal investigation into Los Angeles Unified School District began in May after McMahon's office reviewed a 2024 settlement agreement between LAUSD and United Teachers Los Angeles.
The contract language is damning.
It guaranteed that any UTLA teacher accused of maintaining a sexual or "romantic" relationship with a student, creating child pornography, or failing to report child abuse would be "reassigned" – with the union requiring written notification within five days of the allegations.
Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Kimberly Richey called it exactly what it is.
"The district seems to be putting the continued employment of sexual predators above the safety of students," Richey said. "It is unconscionable that the district would simply ignore Title IX's procedural requirements to protect teachers who cause life-changing harm to their kids."
LAUSD claimed "reassignment" means sending accused teachers home during investigations – not to other schools.
But that's the same explanation every district has given for decades, and it's how teachers accused of abuse have moved from school to school across America for fifty years.
The Epidemic Nobody Was Talking About
The practice even has a name: "passing the trash."
School districts allow accused teachers to quietly leave, keep the allegations off their personnel files, and provide references clean enough to get them hired somewhere new – where the cycle starts over.
The Government Accountability Office documented in 2010 that firing a union-protected teacher, even in a slam-dunk case, can cost a district more than $100,000.
So administrators made a business decision.
Move the problem, not the predator.
McMahon's July "Dear Colleague" letter to superintendents across the country named this for what it is – "institutional silence and complacency" driven by unions "committed to shield their members from disciplinary actions."
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She cited a landmark Education Department study showing nearly one in ten students experiences sexual misconduct by the time they graduate high school.
A follow-up study now puts that number at 17 percent – a nearly 100 percent increase in educator rape or attempted rape since 2004.
This week alone, three cases made headlines: a New Jersey special education teacher sentenced to 12 years for abusing an 8th grader, a California swim coach who pled guilty to sexual penetration of a 14-year-old, and a Washington state teacher sentenced to 15 years for repeatedly filming sex acts with a 13-year-old.
Three cases. One week.
Almost no national coverage.
What McMahon Is Actually Threatening
The federal lever is money – and nearly every school district in America depends on federal funding to keep its doors open.
McMahon put it in writing: districts that fail to comply with Title IX and the Elementary and Secondary Education Act face the loss of that funding.
California's exposure is the worst in the country.
The state has refused to revoke the professional licenses of at least 67 educators whose own districts determined they committed sexual misconduct against students – and 12 of those teachers are still working in education right now.
Attorney John Manly, whose firm has won hundreds of millions in judgments against LAUSD and the Catholic Church for sexual abuse, has been watching this for decades.
"With every school predator there is an enabler," Manly told Breitbart. "And the enablers need to be held accountable."
He has deposed hundreds of administrators in abuse cases and says the pattern never changes.
"The shocking thing is the absolute indifference of administrators and superintendents to the problem," he said. "The minute you start sending administrators to prison this will all stop."
Why This Is Different From Every Previous Crackdown
Lawmakers have been trying to end "passing the trash" since the 1990s.
Obama signed the Every Student Succeeds Act in 2015 with a provision specifically prohibiting districts from helping accused predators find new teaching jobs.
The law was largely ignored.
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New Jersey passed its own "pass the trash" law in 2018, and a state investigation six years later found districts were still working around it – signing confidential settlements with accused teachers, providing clean references, letting predators self-report their own histories to the next employer.
Trump is not approaching this as a suggestion.
Twenty directed federal investigations. A credible funding threat.
A national letter naming specific unions and specific districts.
The Catholic Church covered up predatory priests for decades and got away with it until accountability became unavoidable.
Teachers unions have been running the same playbook in America's schools.
The difference now is that Linda McMahon is not the bishop.
Sources:
- U.S. Department of Education, "US Department of Education Launches National K-12 Initiative to Protect Students from Adult Sexual Predators in Schools," ed.gov, July 2026.
- KTLA Staff, "U.S. Dept. of Education Investigating LAUSD Over Teacher Misconduct Reassignment Policy," KTLA, May 5, 2026.
- Fox LA Staff, "LAUSD Under Federal Investigation for Teacher Misconduct Reassignment," Fox LA, May 5, 2026.
- Fox News Staff, "'Passing the Trash': States Crack Down on Practice That Protects Abusive Teachers," Fox News, 2017.