President Donald Trump is laying the groundwork to rein in transgender policies in educational institutions by launching Title IX investigations and lawsuits across the country during his first few months in office.
From Maine to Washington State, the Education and Justice departments’ recent actions against states and schools are setting the stage for an intensifying debate that could end up before the Supreme Court.
At the center of the fight is a question over whether Title IX, a civil rights law passed in 1972 that prevents sex discrimination in schools, legally includes protections for students who say they are transgender.
How we got here
Former President Barack Obama sparked the conversation in 2016 when he issued a “Dear Colleague” letter declaring that Title IX’s ban on sex discrimination extended to gender identity. The letter, while not legally enforceable, directed schools receiving federal funds to let students use bathrooms or participate in sports that corresponded to their gender identity.
The first Trump administration quashed those efforts and began a tedious process to implement Education Department rules that included requiring schools to adhere to a longstanding interpretation of Title IX that was based on biological sex.
The rules, spearheaded by former Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, became enforceable in 2020. Former President Joe Biden moved to unravel those rules as part of an effort to reinterpret Title IX, including by attempting to allow transgender athletes at federally funded schools to participate in sports that corresponded to their gender identity.
However, court injunctions, including a final blow from a federal judge in Kentucky in January, wiped out Biden’s rules, leaving the second Trump administration a clear path when it took over to resume enforcement of DeVos’s rules immediately.
What’s happening now
At the forefront of the reignited Title IX fights is a lawsuit brought by the Department of Justice in Maine that alleges the state’s Department of Education is out of compliance with Title IX.
“They must not be reading the same Title IX we’re reading,” Attorney General Pam Bondi said at a press conference last month announcing the lawsuit.
Maine responded this week by denying that it was in violation of Title IX, alleging that Trump’s executive orders declaring that only two sexes exist carried no legal weight and arguing to the court that the lawsuit was unconstitutional on numerous grounds.
A judge said the case could be ready for trial by Dec. 3, meaning the case could be the first to make it to the Supreme Court. Bondi warned that California and Minnesota could face similar lawsuits soon.
In 2020, the high court weighed in on Title VII, which governs workplace rules. The 6-3 decision in Bostock v. Clayton County found that gender identity was protected under Title VII, but the Supreme Court has not weighed in on Title IX.
Legal fights typically originate with investigations in the Education Department before they are moved under the DOJ’s purview.
On April 30, the Education Department launched an investigation into Washington State, first reported by the Washington Examiner, which alleged that its superintendent office was adopting policies in schools that allowed boys in locker rooms and on sports teams that were exclusive to girls.
“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,” Education Secretary Linda McMahon said of the inquiry. “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.”
This week, the Education Department announced a probe into Western Carolina University after activist Payton McNabb, a former student, posted a viral video to social media that appeared to show a man in a women’s bathroom. The North Carolina college responded in a statement that it was “compliant with all current state and federal regulations.”
Saratoga Springs City School District in New York is among several other entities that have recently drawn scrutiny from the department over Title IX compliance.
Reception
Addressing Trump targeting her state, Maine Gov. Janet Mills (D) told local news there were “maybe two” two transgender athletes in Maine and then shifted the conversation to sexual assault policies, which are also governed by Title IX.
Alleigh Marre, an executive director at the advocacy group American Parents Coalition, told the Washington Examiner that regardless of the sparse occurrences of transgender students, the investigations and lawsuits over the matter were still critical to guarding female students’ privacy in locker rooms and bathrooms and their ability to compete fairly on sports teams.
Just because the number is low, “doesn’t mean that we make exemptions and exceptions that put other people in danger or open the door for bad actors to take advantage of those policies, and that’s absolutely, unequivocally what’s happening,” Marre said.
BONDI ANNOUNCES LAWSUIT AGAINST MAINE OVER TRANSGENDER SPORTS DISPUTE
She also noted that the Trump administration’s positions on gender ideology were popular, citing a poll her group conducted in Maine in March that showed a majority of respondents in the blue-leaning state tended to want stricter rules in place regarding gender identity.
“There’s of course the nuts and bolts, in the weeds, legal piece … but then there’s also the broader, big P, political side of it and public opinion,” Marre said. “And that has been extremely clear, even in a state like Maine.”