Washington– The Department of Education said Monday it has terminated agreements reached by previous administrations with five school districts and a college aimed at upholding rights and protections for students. Transgender students.
The decision means the department will no longer play a role in enforcing those agreements, which called for schools to take steps to comply with federal civil rights law. The affected districts are Cape Henlopen School District in Delaware, Fife School District in Washington, Delaware Valley School District in Pennsylvania, La Mesa Spring Valley School District, Sacramento City Unified and Taft College in California.
Under the Biden and Obama administrations, the department interpreted Title IX, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex in education, to include protections for transgender and LGBT students.
The Trump administration has punished schools that made efforts to accommodate students based on their gender identity. I have Lawsuits filed in California and Minnesota over state policies allowing transgender students to participate in interscholastic sports, and opened civil rights investigations into schools and universities over their policies toward transgender students.
But Monday’s announcement appears to include the first known instances of the administration terminating civil rights settlements negotiated with schools.
Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Kimberly Ritchie said the action reflects the administration’s efforts to prevent transgender students from participating on girls’ and women’s sports teams and accessing shared locker rooms.
“Today, the Trump administration is removing unnecessary and unlawful burdens that previous administrations imposed on schools in their aggressive pursuit of an extremist transgender agenda,” she said in a written statement.
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