The Education Department announced Monday that it has ended agreements with five school districts and a college that were designed to uphold protections for transgender students, stepping away from requirements established by previous administrations that interpreted civil rights differently.
The move eliminates federal obligations for these schools to maintain measures such as training staff to respect students’ preferred names and pronouns and allowing students to use bathrooms that align with their gender identity.
One of the districts, Delaware Valley School District in rural eastern Pennsylvania, received notice of the change from the Trump administration in February and has since voted to roll back its antidiscrimination protections for transgender students. Another district, Sacramento City Unified, said Monday it “remains committed to the support of our LGBTQ+ students and staff.”
The other affected districts include Cape Henlopen School District in Delaware, Fife School District in Washington, and La Mesa-Spring Valley School District, along with Taft College in California.
Under the Biden and Obama administrations, the department interpreted Title IX, which prohibits sex discrimination in education, as extending protections to transgender and gay students.
The Trump administration has penalized schools that attempted to accommodate students based on gender identity. It has filed lawsuits in California and Minnesota over state policies allowing transgender students to participate in interscholastic sports and has opened civil rights investigations into schools and universities over their policies on transgender students.
Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Kimberly Richey said the decision reflects the administration’s effort to prevent transgender students from participating in girls’ and women’s sports teams and from accessing shared locker rooms.
“Today, the Trump Administration is removing the unnecessary and unlawful burdens that prior Administrations imposed on schools in its relentless pursuit of a radical transgender agenda,” she said in a written statement.
Rescinding civil rights agreements is an uncommon step, but the Trump administration has taken similar actions before in education. Last year, the Education Department ended one agreement involving books removed from a school library in Georgia and another addressing harsh discipline and unequal educational opportunities for Native students in the Rapid City Area School District in South Dakota.
Shiwali Patel, senior director of education justice at the National Women’s Law Center, said the rollback represents a step away from protecting vulnerable students in schools.
“This is part of the Trump administration’s assault on education and assault on those who are most vulnerable to experiencing discrimination and harassment, including trans students,” Patel said. “They’ve made their intention very clear in wanting to erase protections for trans people.”
Taft College, a community college in California’s Central Valley, reached a settlement in 2023 with the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights after a student accused faculty of discrimination, including refusing to use the student’s preferred pronouns. The college agreed to train faculty on Title IX and revise its policies to clarify that refusing to use a person’s preferred name and pronoun could constitute harassment.
The agreement with Sacramento City Unified School District stemmed from a 2022 complaint filed by a student after a teacher refused to use preferred pronouns or place the student, who identified as male, in a boys’ group for a class activity. The 2024 resolution required employee training on civil rights law, sexual harassment, and handling formal complaints.
Under a settlement with the Obama administration, Delaware Valley School District had to allow students to use bathrooms aligned with their gender identity.
In February, the Trump administration sent the district a letter rescinding that settlement. It also required the district to roll back its antidiscrimination protections for transgender students.
The school board voted in late March to revise its transgender student policies to comply with the administration’s directives.
Since returning to the White House more than a year ago, Trump and his administration have targeted transgender rights in multiple areas beyond education.
He has sought to bar transgender women and girls from competing in women’s and girls’ sports and has sued states that do not comply. He has also blocked transgender and nonbinary individuals from selecting sex markers on passports. In addition, his administration has attempted to stop those under 19 from receiving gender-affirming medical care.
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