FIRST ON THE DAILY SIGNAL—The Trump Education Department’s Office of Civil Rights has hit the ground running by initiating investigations into antisemitism, threats to women’s sports and private spaces, and other violations ignored by the Biden administration.
The Office of Civil Rights is a subagency of the Department of Education dedicated to addressing discrimination complaints.
But over the past four years, investigations into controversial culture war issues have languished unresolved.
“The Trump Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights has taken bold and immediate action to address civil rights violations that the Biden administration allowed to fester,” Department of Education spokeswoman Julie Hartman told The Daily Signal. “We initiated directed investigations that put universities and schools on notice that antisemitic harassment, Title IX violations, and other civil rights transgressions will not be tolerated.”
“The prior administration left OCR scrambling as complaints piled up without meaningful investigations or resolutions,” she continued. “The Trump administration is quickly turning that around.”
Women’s Sports
The Office of Civil Rights received a complaint under Title IX about transgender-identifying swimmer William “Lia” Thomas in 2022 and opened an investigation, but the Biden administration failed to resolve it, The Daily Signal has learned.
Thomas, a biological male, competed on the University of Pennsylvania men’s team for three years before identifying as female and joining the women’s team.
He tied with 12-time All-American and three-time Southeastern Conference champion Riley Gaines at the NCAA Division I Women’s Championships in 2022.
Surrounded by female athletes, President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Feb. 5 withholding federal funding from schools that allow biological males like Thomas to compete in girls and women’s sports.
Trump’s OCR sprung into action, investigating violations of the president’s directive.
On Feb. 6, the Education Department announced investigations into the Minnesota State High School League and the California Interscholastic Federation for announcing plans to continue to allow males who identify as female to compete in women’s sports.
The OCR is also investigating San Jose State University, the University of Pennsylvania, and the Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association for reported violations of Title IX, the federal law that ensures equal opportunities for women and girls.
The Education Department also sent a “Dear Colleague” letter clarifying that it will enforce Title IX protections on the basis of biological sex in K-12 schools and on college campuses. This followed a judge’s ruling striking down the Biden administration’s attempted rewrite of Title IX, which would have established access to women’s spaces based on gender identity, rather than sex.
The U.S. Department of Education’s Office of General Counsel has also urged the organizations that oversee college and high school sports to give female athletes honors unfairly lost to biological males.
The OCR is also investigating the state of Maine for defying Trump by continuing to allow boys to compete in female sports.
Almost three-quarters of voters say they think medals awarded to biological men who defeat females in sports should be given instead to the women who lost, according to polling from Scott Rasmussen shared with The Daily Signal.
The majority of voters, including Democrats, don’t think men should play women’s sports, a New York Times poll in January found.
Antisemitism
Nearly 100 antisemitic violence and harassment cases were not resolved under the Biden administration. Almost 70 of them occurred after Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel and were related to elementary, secondary, and postsecondary schools, the Trump Department of Education confirmed.
Trump issued an executive order on Jan. 29 combating antisemitism in schools, after which the Department of Education announced investigations into five higher education hot spots for antisemitism—Columbia University, Northwestern University, Portland State University, the University of California at Berkeley, and the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities.
Anti-Israel protests on the campuses of some of America’s most elite colleges resulted in hundreds of arrests and led Columbia University in New York to move classes online for the remainder of the semester.
Instead of investigating threats to the safety of Jewish students on their college campuses, the Biden administration deployed Office of Civil Rights resources to look into pronoun-usage cases and so-called book bans, The Daily Signal has learned.
Just four days into the Trump administration, the OCR dismissed 11 complaints related to “book bans,” which alleged that the decision of local school districts to remove sexually explicit books from their school libraries created a hostile environment for students.
Incoming OCR leadership initiated a review of alleged “book banning” cases on Jan. 20 pending at the department. Lawyers quickly determined the school districts have the right to remove books deemed age-inappropriate by parents and community stakeholders.
Disability Complaints
One month into the Trump administration, the OCR lifted the pause on complaints alleging discrimination on the basis of disability.
Yet legacy media has used the Trump administration’s pause to decry the new Education Department for neglecting disabled families.
Every new administration puts a brief pause on investigating complaints to determine which ones the OCR should prioritize. The Biden administration lifted its pause on investigating alleged discrimination on the basis of disability until March 10, 2021, seven weeks into its term.
The Trump OCR lifted its pause on Feb. 20, placing it nearly three weeks ahead on this matter.
This article was originally published at www.dailysignal.com
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