Department of Education investigates California and Minnesota over anti-trans executive order
The US Department of Education opened Title IX investigations with regards to Trump’s “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports” executive order. (Getty)
The Department of Education has opened an investigation into California and Minnesota’s high school sports governing bodies over Donald Trump’s anti-trans executive order banning trans women from participating in sports.
Last week, President Trump adhered to his campaign promise and signed the executive order, called “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports”. The order, which GLAAD says has “zero credibility protecting women and girls”, bans trans women from competing in women’s sporting events.
In light of the executive order, the Department of Education now has the power to investigate high schools and governing bodies that are not thought to be complying. It has opened Title IX investigations into the California Interscholastic Federation and the Minnesota State High School League after they said they would continue to allow trans students to compete in their affirmed gender identity, rather than assigned sex at birth.
The organisations said they would follow state anti-discrimination laws. However, a Trump-Vance administration spokesperson said that the executive order overrides state law.
In a Wednesday (12 February) statement, Craig Trainor, Department of Education acting assistant secretary for civil rights, said: “The Minnesota State High School League and the California Interscholastic Federation are free to engage in all the meaningless virtue-signaling that they want, but at the end of the day they must abide by federal law.”
The order states that under Title IX – a landmark piece of civil rights legislation – “educational institutions receiving Federal funds cannot deny women an equal opportunity to participate in sports”.
Introduced in 1972, Title IX protects people from sex-based discrimination in education programmes or activities that receive federal financial assistance and is best known for ensuring gender equality in college sports.
In recent months and years, interpretations of the scope of Title IX have been hotly contested in the context of trans inclusion in sports, particularly after the Biden administration’s update to the legislation – first proposed in 2022 – which aimed to provide explicit protections for LGBTQ+ pupils and prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.
In response, several Republican-controlled states vowed to reject the law, suing the Biden administration and labelling the legislation “illegal, undemocratic and divorced from reality” and claiming it puts “women at risk”, with the US Supreme Court stating in August 2024 the changed definitions cannot be enforced in 26 states where legal challenges are ongoing.
At the start of this year, Republicans sought to define Title IX protections solely based on biological sex in their rules package for the 119th Congress.
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