Overview
- The Education Department, which announced the change Monday, terminated portions of six civil-rights resolution agreements and said it will stop monitoring or enforcing them.
- Officials said prior administrations wrongly extended Title IX, a 1972 law that bars sex discrimination in federally funded education, to cover gender identity and have restored a 2020 rule that treats protections as based on biological sex after a 2025 court ruling.
- The rescissions cover five school districts in Delaware, Pennsylvania, Washington and California, plus Taft College in California, which had agreed to steps such as staff training and policy changes in cases involving misnaming and misgendering.
- Local responses vary, with Delaware Valley in Pennsylvania rolling back its policies after a February letter from federal officials, while other districts reported they had not been contacted or said any changes would require school board votes and could conflict with state laws.
- Civil-rights lawyers called the termination of negotiated settlements rare and potentially precedent-setting, and the action fits a wider push that includes new investigations and lawsuits challenging school policies on transgender students, including participation in girls’ sports.