California Found in Violation of Title IX Over Transgender Athletes

Another show down is looming between the Trump Administration and California.

The Trump Education Department declared today that California illegally discriminated against women and girls by allowing males identifying as females on female sports teams and into female locker rooms.

The Department said because of this encroachment, the California Department of Education and the California Interscholastic Federation were in “clear violation of  Title IX,” which prohibits sex discrimination in education,  by having “actively prevented this equality of opportunity by allowing males in girls’ sports and intimate spaces.”

The Trump Administration’s novel interpretation of Title IX is directly at odds with the California law that has allowed boys to declare themselves girls and freely usurp girls sports. It says that students “shall be permitted to participate in sex-segregated programs and activities, including athletic teams and competitions and use facilities consistent with his or her gender identity, irrespective of the gender listed on the pupil’s records.”

But Trump Education officials gave California 10 days to agree to bar transgender athletes from girls sports and rescind their awards or face possible “enforcement action” by the Justice Department and loss of federal funding.

“Although Governor Gavin Newsom admitted months ago it was ‘deeply unfair’  to allow men to compete in women’s sports, both the California Department of Education and the California Interscholastic Federation continued as recently as a few weeks ago to allow men to steal female athletes’ well-deserved accolades and to subject them to the indignity of unfair and unsafe competitions,” US Education Secretary Linda McMahon said in a statement. “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. The state must swiftly come into compliance with Title IX or face the consequences that follow.”

The Federal  Education Department’s findings were the conclusion of investigations it launched earlier this year into the California Department of Education and the California Interscholastic Federation for allowing boys in girls sports.

The Education Department gave both the California Department of Education and the California Interscholastic Federation a number of steps they must take to rectify their violation of Title IX.

Under the “Resolution Agreement” that it proposed the California Department of Education must tell all “recipients of federal funding that interscholastic athletic programs in California” that Title IX “forbids schools from allowing males from participating in female sports and from occupying female intimate facilities, and that Recipients must adopt biology-based definitions of the words ‘male’ and ‘female’.”

Under the Proposed agreement, the California’s Interscholastic Federation must also “restore to female athletes all individual records, titles, and awards misappropriated by male athletes competing in female competitions.”

And the California Education Department must send to each female athletic who lost out to a transgender athlete “a personalized letter apologizing on behalf of the state of California for allowing her educational experience to be marred by sex discrimination.”

And perhaps, most importantly, recipients of federal funding must be notified that Title IX preempts California law. “The CDE will issue a Notice advising Recipients that any interpretation of California state law conflicting with the Department’s Resolution Agreement is preempted by federal law under Title IX.”

But so far California officials from the governor on down have scoffed at the Education Department’s demands.

Izzy Gardon, a spokesman for Gavin Newsom, said in a statement that “It wouldn’t be a day ending in ‘Y’ without the Trump administration threatening to defund California. Now Secretary McMahon is confusing government with her WrestleMania days — dramatic, fake, and completely divorced from reality. This won’t stick.”

Similarly, Liz Sanders, a spokeswoman for the California Department of Education, said in a statement that, “The California Department of Education believes all students should have the opportunity to learn and play at school, and we have consistently applied existing law in support of students’ rights to do so.”

But Sonja Shaw, president of the Chino Valley Unified School District Board of Education and a steadfast opponent of transgener orthodoxy, told the California Globe that she believes the Education Department finding “will  be the next step in pulling federal funding.”

In a statement, she said that “Boys are boys. Girls are girls. And those who fought against that basic truth deserve no mercy. This is not a policy mistake. This is systemic abuse. And now justice is knocking at their door.”