The U.S. Department of Education announced Monday that its Office for Civil Rights is rescinding parts of resolution agreements resulting from Title IX investigations under previous Democratic administrations.
The resolution agreements were meant to advance LGBTQ+ inclusion, as the Obama and Biden administrations interpreted the law barring sex discrimination in education programs as including LGBTQ+ students in its protections.
"Previous Administrations distorted the law contrary to its plain meaning to police discrimination on the basis of ‘gender identity,’ not sex, and imposed resolution agreements with no legal foundation, but rather, based on an ideologically-driven interpretation of Title IX," the Education Department said in a Monday press release. "They illegally saddled school districts with Title IX violations for actions such as 'improper use of preferred pronouns' or 'asking questions about a student’s preferred ‘gender.’"
In line with Title IX interpretations under the Obama and Biden administrations, OCR entered into resolution agreements protecting transgender students’ bathroom access and preferred pronoun usage, in addition to preventing removal of LGBTQ+-related books, for example.
"All students, including transgender students, are protected from sex-based discrimination under Title IX," stated a 2016 letter — issued under the Obama administration — detailing findings from OCR's investigation into Pennsylvania's Delaware Valley School District.
However, the current Trump administration says those interpretations and their inclusion in the Biden administration's 2024 Title IX rule "impermissibly expanded the scope of Title IX to enforce discrimination based on ‘gender identity,’ not biological sex."
The resolution agreements with five school districts and one college that it partially rescinded on Monday were "reached through the illegal, heavy-handed manipulation of Title IX," the Education Department said.
In Pennsylvania’s Delaware Valley School District, for instance, OCR required the district to hire a consultant "with expertise in child and adolescent gender identity, including discrimination against transgender and gender nonconforming youth," review its policies to ensure LGBTQ+ students had discrimination-free access to education programs, and offer support teams for gender-transitioning students.
In addition to Delaware Valley School District and California’s Taft College, the districts whose resolution agreements were affected are:
- Cape Henlopen School District in Delaware.
- Fife School District in Washington state.
- La Mesa-Spring Valley School District in California.
- Sacramento City Unified in California.
