The U.S. Department of Education announced Wednesday that the California Department of Education and the California Interscholastic Federation violated the civil rights of female students on the basis of sex by allowing transgender students to compete in school sports according to their gender identity.
Having concluded its investigation, the U.S. Department of Education is calling on California to “voluntarily agree” to change what it determined are “unlawful practices” within 10 days or risk “imminent enforcement action.”
“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,” U.S. Secretary of Education 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.”
California officials were not immediately available for comment.
Triston Ezidore, the Culver City unified school board president, said the department’s finding “does not protect women and girls — it harms them.”
“Barring transgender students from participating in sports based on the president of the United States deciding who is ‘woman enough’ is both discriminatory and unjust. True protection for female athletes means fighting for fairness and inclusion, not using exclusionary definitions to marginalize vulnerable students,” he said in an interview with The Times.
“Worse still, this ruling doesn’t just harm transgender youth, it degrades all female athletes by demanding that women and girls and subject themselves to invasive scrutiny,” he added. “It forces school staff to police and enforce a politically motivated definition of womanhood, turning our schools into gatekeepers of identity rather than safe spaces for learning and growth..”
But Chino Valley Unified school board President Sonja Shaw, a Trump supporter running for state schools superintendent who has challenged pro-LGBTQ+ laws, hailed the department’s finding as a “step towards justice.”
“CIF and CDE were warned. Over and over,” she said. “But instead of listening, they laughed. They smirked. They mocked parents and anyone that stood for the truth and let our daughters be mocked, sidelined, and erased. They handed girls over to an ideology that stole their privacy, safety, and achievements. Now, they’ve been federally exposed as lawbreakers.”
The U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights opened an investigation in February into the California Interscholastic Federation, which oversees sports at more than 1,500 high schools, after the athletic group continued its policy of allowing transgender students to compete in accordance with their gender identity.
Under Title IX, a landmark 1972 federal civil rights law that prohibits sex-based discrimination in educational programs that receive federal funding, schools must ensure equal opportunities for women and girls, including in athletic activities.
California’s education code states that students “shall be permitted to participate in sex-segregated school 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.”
In May, the U.S. Department of Justice began an investigation into whether California, its interscholastic sports federation and the Jurupa Unified School District were violating the civil rights of female students by allowing transgender students to compete in school sports.
In an attempt to address the issue of female athletes losing out on awards, the California Interscholastic Federation moved forward May 27 with a plan that duplicates the awards when a transgender athlete wins a competition.
Under the new process, an athlete who would have won the award receives the same recognition that she would have if the trans athlete had not competed. This practice was applied to the state competition in which AB Hernandez, a 16-year-old transgender junior from Jurupa Valley High School, won multiple medals at the state high school track and field championships.
But the new CIF policy does not address team sports, where its more difficult to assess the impact of an individual trans athlete. Nor was the policy applied retroactively to rewrite the results of past competitions.
The Trump administration has not publicly acknowledged the CIF change — and Wednesday’s announcement makes clear that it does not go far enough for the federal government.
Under the Department of Education’s proposed “Resolution Agreement,” California must send a notice to all recipients of federal funding that operate interscholastic athletic programs that they must comply with the administration’s interpretation of Title IX.
The notice, it states, must specify that “Title IX and its implementing regulations forbids schools from allowing males from participating in female sports and from occupying female intimate facilities” and that recipients of federal funding “must adopt biology-based definitions of the words ‘male’ and ‘female.’”
The California Department of Education must also advise recipients of federal funding that any interpretation of California state law conflicting with the administration’s notice s preempted by federal law under Title IX.
The Department of Education is also requiring the state and CIF to rescind any guidance that advised local school districts or CIF members to “permit male athletes to participate in women’s and girls’ sports.”
CIF and other bodies must also restore all “individual records, titles, and awards” to female athletes that were “misappropriated by male athletes competing in female competitions” — a process that could strip transgender athletes of awards and prizes.
Asked for more information on “consequences” California would face for not complying with the federal demands, an Education Department spokesperson referred The Times to McMahon’s Wednesday appearance on Fox and Friends.
In the Fox interview, McMahon said California runs “the risk of losing their federal funding, you know, in their K-12 schools” if it does not, among other actions, “send a letter of apology to all of the participants, female participants in sports” and “return the titles that were taken away from these women who competed and lost to a male in the sports.”
Asked how how much funding was on the line, McMahon said, “I’d have to look at that to be exact because they’re different levels of it, but it could be substantial amount of money that would come into California.”
President Trump, who made the participation of transgender athletes in women’s sports a key issue of his 2024 election campaign, threatened last month to cut federal funding to California if the state continued to allow transgender athletes to compete.
Railing against Newsom on Truth Social, Trump complained the state “continues to ILLEGALLY allow MEN TO PLAY IN WOMEN’S SPORTS.”
“I will speak to him today to find out which way he wants to go???” Trump said of Newsom. “In the meantime I am ordering local authorities, if necessary, to not allow the transitioned person to compete in the State Finals. This is a totally ridiculous situation!!!”
The Department of Justice continued to ramp up the pressure on schools, warning school districts in early June that they faced legal trouble if they did not bar such athletes from competition.
The next day, however, California Supt. of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond sent out a letter, saying that the federal warning carried no legal weight. School districts, he said, were still obligated to comply with state law allowing transgender youth to compete.
