The U.S. Department of Education said Tuesday that it will place five Northern Virginia school districts on high-risk payment status for defying the administration on transgender access to bathrooms in violation of federal law.
The school districts, or “divisions,” will be downgraded to reimbursement status within the federal grant system for “all Department funds including formula funding, discretionary grants, and impact aid grants, totaling over $50 million,” the department said.
“The Divisions will now be required to pay their education expenses up front and then request reimbursement for expenditures to access funds obligated by the Department,” said the department in a statement.
All five districts – Alexandria City Schools, Arlington Public Schools, Fairfax County Public Schools, Loudoun County Public Schools, and Prince William County Public Schools – allow students to use sex-segregated facilities such as bathrooms and locker rooms based on their gender identity.
The move comes as the department moves to suspend or withdraw federal funding from the districts for refusing to rescind their policies allowing opposite-sex use of “intimate facilities” after a federal investigation found them in breach of Title IX of the 1972 Education Amendments.
The five districts declined to sign the administration’s proposed resolution agreement by the Friday deadline, citing a conflicting 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals opinion requiring schools to permit students to use facilities based on gender identity.
They argued that the department should wait for the outcome of a Supreme Court case on whether Title IX’s ban on sex discrimination extends to gender identity.
Education Secretary Linda McMahon said the school districts have prioritized “woke gender policy” over federal law.
“States and school districts cannot openly violate federal law while simultaneously receiving federal funding with no additional scrutiny,” she said in a Tuesday statement. “The Northern Virginia School Divisions that are choosing to abide by woke gender ideology in place of federal law must now prove they are using every single federal dollar for a legal purpose.”
“We have given these Northern Virginia School Divisions every opportunity to rectify their policies which blatantly violate Title IX,” Ms. McMahon said. “Today’s accountability measures are necessary because they have stubbornly refused to provide a safe environment for young women in their schools.”
Dropping a federal grantee’s status to high risk is typically done in cases of financial instability or mismanagement. Entities designated high risk for education grants in the past include American Samoa.
Those cheering the administration’s crackdown on Northern Virginia’s transgender policies include Alleigh Marre, executive director of the American Parents Coalition.
“Ensuring boys and girls use private facilities and participate in teams that correspond with their biological sex is not only common sense, but also is mandated under federal law,” she said in a statement. “We’re grateful for President Trump’s leadership in standing with biological truth and the parents who have been fighting for it.”
