The Trump administration launched an investigation Wednesday into reports that Washington state has violated Title IX with its policies on transgender athletes and concealing students’ gender-transition activities from parents.
“Washington State appears to use its position of authority to coerce its districts into hiding ‘gender identity’ information from students’ parents and to adopt policies to covertly smuggle gender ideology into the classroom, confusing students and letting boys into girls’ sports, bathrooms, and locker rooms,” said Secretary of Education Linda McMahon in a statement.
“If true, these are clear violations of parental rights and female equality in athletics, which are protected by federal laws that will be enforced by the Trump Administration,” she said.
The probe into the Washington Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI) is being led by the Title IX Special Investigations Team, a newly formed joint initiative of the Department of Education and Department of Justice aimed at handling the “staggering volume” of Title IX complaints.
“Today’s investigation into Washington OSPI is a first-of-its-kind, bringing together ED and DOJ, and multiple offices within ED, to adjudicate several potential violations of federal law,” said Ms. McMahon.
The department said “multiple school districts” are reporting that OSPI told them to adopt policies allowing male-born athletes to compete in girls’ sports based on gender identity, which would directly contradict President Trump’s Feb. 5 executive order, “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports.”
In its letter to Washington Superintendent Chris Reykdal, the special investigative team said that such policies would also violate Title IX, which bans sex discrimination in educational institutions that receive federal funding.
The federal team also said that Washington may have violated other federal laws, including the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, with its letter of finding earlier this year to the La Center School District.
In a Feb. 26 letter, the state superintendent’s office said that La Center violated state law by “discriminating on the basis of gender identity and gender expression” with its policies against preferred pronouns and in favor of notifying parents about their children’s gender transitions.
Ironically, the OSPI ordered the district to fall in line with the state’s Gender-Inclusive Schools model policies or face a referral to “to appropriate state or federal agencies empowered to order compliance with the law.”
The district has appealed.
In a Wednesday statement, Mr. Reykdal accused the administration of making his office “the latest target in the Administration’s dangerous war against individuals who are transgender or gender-expansive.”
“My office will enforce our current laws as we are required to do until Congress changes the law and/or federal courts invalidate Washington state’s laws,” Mr. Reykdal said. “Unless and until that happens, we will be following Washington state’s laws, not a president’s political leanings expressed through unlawful orders.”
The Trump administration is also investigating potential Title IX violations in Maine, Minnesota and California, setting up a likely court battle over whether the federal civil-rights law’s ban on sex discrimination includes gender identity.
The Biden administration expanded Title IX last year to include gender identity, but Mr. Trump rescinded the rulemaking shortly after taking office. A federal judge also ruled against the Biden-era interpretation of Title IX in a Jan. 9 decision.
