Two organizations filed a federal civil rights complaint against the California Department of Education and some of the state’s largest school districts and alleged that the agencies failed to comply with Title IX regulations.
The Defense of Freedom Institute for Policy Studies and the California Justice Center filed a complaint Monday alleging that the CDE, Los Angeles Unified School District, San Francisco Unified School District, and Capistrano Unified School District violated Title IX by requiring “students to share sleeping quarters and intimate facilities with individuals, including adults, of the opposite sex as a condition for participating in school programs and activities.”
“Schools should not require a fifth-grade girl to sacrifice her dignity and privacy to accommodate the gender identity preference of another student as a condition of participating in a school activity. To do so would simply erase ‘sex’ from Title IX,” DFI president Bob Eitel said in a press release. “The situation in Capistrano USD should not be considered in isolation. It illustrates how these laws and policies are playing out in California and other states across the country.”
The DFI and CJC requested that the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights investigate the accused California school districts, which boast over 630,000 students, and withhold federal funding if they fail to implement “immediate corrective action” to comply with Title IX.
Title IX prohibits discrimination based on sex across all educational systems and schools that receive federal funding. The Trump administration’s Department of Education interprets “sex” in Title IX to mean biological sex, in accordance with a 2020 rule from during Trump’s first term. However, California law upholds a fluid definition of sex expanded to include gender identity, an interpretation that has brought the state into conflict with the White House.
The complaint filed Monday cited CUSD, the largest school district in Orange County, over transgender policies it planned for use during a fifth grade trip to the Pali Institute outdoor education camp. The policies allowed transgender students to share private spaces with peers and adults of the opposite biological sex, according to court documents.
“CUSD plans to assign students to cabins and bathroom facilities based on ‘gender identity’ rather than sex. CUSD policies also prohibit notifying parents about whether their child will share sleeping spaces with individuals of the opposite sex and do not allow families to opt-out,” a DFI press release said, adding that elementary school students are to share sleeping and changing spaces with individuals based on gender identity instead of sex.
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In 2024, the Biden administration attempted to expand Title IX protections to include gender identity. Multiple courts struck down the Biden-era reinterpretation before the Trump administration’s Department of Education reverted back to the 2020 rule in January.
The Washington Examiner reached out to the California Department of Education and each school district named in the lawsuit for comment.
This article was originally published at www.washingtonexaminer.com
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