The Trump administration on Wednesday gave California 10 days to agree to remove biological males from girls’ scholastic sports or risk the loss of federal funding, saying the state’s transgender-eligibility policy violates federal law.
An investigation by the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights found that the California Department of Education and the California Interscholastic Federation are “in clear violation of Title IX,” the federal civil rights law banning sex discrimination in education.
“Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 requires schools to ensure equal opportunities for girls, including in athletic activities, but California has actively prevented this equality of opportunity by allowing males in girls’ sports and intimate spaces,” the department said in a statement.
The department’s proposed resolution agreement calls for state officials to inform all public schools that Title IX forbids them from allowing males in female sports or “female intimate facilities,” and that they must adopt “biology-based definitions of the words ‘male’ and ‘female.’’’
The agreement also requires the state to rescind policies allowing male-born athletes to compete in female sports, restore any awards and records “misappropriated by male athletes competing in female competitions” and apologize to each affected girl for “allowing her educational experience to be marred by sex discrimination.”
State officials have 10 days to implement the changes or “risk imminent enforcement action, including referral to the U.S. Department of Justice for proceedings,” the Education Department said.
Education Secretary Linda McMahon noted that California Gov. Gavin Newsom has raised concerns about transgender athletes competing in girls’ sports. Yet, a male-born student won two girls’ track-and-field titles last month at the CIF state championships.
“It’s very interesting to hear Gov. Newsom say that it’s a matter of fairness,” Ms. McMahon said Wednesday on Fox News Channel’s “Fox & Friends.” “It’s easy. Talk is cheap, but I think he needs to put his money where his month is.”
The federation did make a one-time rule change, awarding medals and qualifying slots to girls bumped by the biological male, Jurupa Valley High School student A.B. Hernandez.
“The Trump Administration will relentlessly enforce Title IX protections for women and girls, and our findings today make clear that California has failed to adhere to its obligations under federal law,” Ms. McMahon said in a statement. “The state must swiftly come into compliance with Title IX or face the consequences that follow.”
Her department’s action comes two weeks after California filed a “pre-enforcement lawsuit” against the Justice Department in “anticipation of imminent legal retaliation against California’s school systems.”
California Attorney General Rob Bonta filed the lawsuit after the Justice Department sent letters to more than 1,600 school districts asking them to “certify in writing” that they will not comply with the CIF bylaw allowing transgender athletes in girls’ sports.
The bylaw was adopted to comply with a 2013 state law known as Assembly Bill 1266 that requires schools to permit students to participate in sex-segregated activities, including sports, based on gender identity.
“The President and his Administration are demanding that California school districts break the law and violate the Constitution — or face legal retaliation,” Mr. Bonta said in a June 9 statement. “They’re demanding that our schools discriminate against the students in their care and deny their constitutionally protected rights.”
Mr. Trump signed an executive order on Feb. 5 titled “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports” that threatens to withhold federal funding from states that allow biological males in female sports.
Ms. McMahon said California runs the risk of losing K-12 federal funding because “that’s where these infractions were committed.”
The NCAA immediately complied with the executive order, taking collegiate sports out of the equation, but blue states like California have argued that their anti-discrimination laws supersede the order.
“As we’ve proven time and again in court, just because the President disagrees with a law, that doesn’t make it any less of one,” Mr. Bonta said. “As California’s chief legal officer, I’ll always fight to uphold and defend the laws of our state, especially those that protect and ensure the civil rights of the most vulnerable among us.”
Ms. McMahon previously recognized June as “Title IX Month” to honor the measure’s 53rd anniversary, which was June 23.
