California trans athlete rules violated Title IX, Education Department says

The U.S. Department of Education on Wednesday said its civil rights office found that the California Department of Education department and the California Interscholastic Federation discriminated against women and girls. The state agencies’ policies allowing male athletes to compete in female sports broke Title IX of the 1972 Education Amendments, which prohibits sex-based discrimination in education, the Education Department said. The department began investigating both California agencies earlier this year for classifying school sports and private spaces by gender identity, not biological sex.

In May, a male track and field athlete who identified as female won several titles in girls’ triple and long jump competitions overseen by the California Interscholastic Foundation, according to KABC-TV. Several female student athletes that month sued their school district for discrimination after losing team spots to male athletes, according to the Justice Department, which also filed a statement of interest in the case.

What did the Education Department ask the California education agencies to do? Both entities may voluntarily agree to change their rules within 10 days. If not, the government will take action, including referral to the Justice Department for proceedings. Recipients of federal education funding in California need to adopt biology-based definitions of male and female students and implement a monitoring mechanism to ensure compliance with Title IX, the Education Department said. The federal law against discrimination supersedes California state law, according to the department. The department also said that the California education agencies must give awards, titles, and apology letters to girls bumped off the podium by male athletes.

WORLD reached out to the California Department of Education and the California Interscholastic Federation. The California Department of Education believes all students should have the opportunity to learn and play at school, and has consistently applied existing law in support of students’ rights to do so, wrote Director of Communications Liz Sanders. A spokeswoman for the California Interscholastic Federation declined to comment on legal matters. 

Dig deeper: Read my earlier report on a Justice Department investigation into California’s transgender student policies.