New York City schools sued federal education officials Thursday over a decision to withhold $47 million in promised grants over guidelines for schools that support transgender students.
City officials said the federal agency led by Education Secretary Linda McMahon cut funding without the required notice or hearing after determining that policies allowing transgender students to play sports and use bathrooms that correspond with their gender identity violated Title IXWhich prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex in education.
The Department of Education, in a September letter, set a deadline for New York City public schools to change policies or lose current and future funding for 19 specialty schools.
Current policies mean that “male students who identify as female or transgender are granted unqualified access to female intimate spaces,” Craig Trainor, acting secretary of state for civil rights, said in a letter.
New York City was among them Several school districts, Including Chicago and Fairfax County, Virginia, to receive such letters. New York City filed a lawsuit in federal court in Manhattan.
School officials maintain that New York City is in full compliance with Title IX and that the federal department’s “new interpretation” conflicts with state and city laws prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sex.
“The DOE’s threat to cut tens of millions of dollars in magnet funding unless we eliminate the protections we provide for transgender and gender-expansive students is contrary to federal, state and local law, and, just as importantly, our values as New York City public schools,” Chancellor Melissa Aviles Ramos said in a press release.
The 48-page lawsuit calls for the decision to withdraw the grants to be overturned.
“The Department sees no merit in this lawsuit,” an Education Department spokesperson responded via email.
The magnet school scholarship program “requires certification of civil rights compliance, which we clearly cannot do in the face of New York City’s continued determination to violate female students’ Title IX rights,” the statement said.