The U.S. Department of Education said Thursday that Denver Public Schools (DPS) violated Title IX, the federal law that bans sex discrimination in education, by opening all-gender bathrooms and allowing students to access restrooms based on their gender identity, rather than their biological sex.

The move came after the department’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) investigated the decision made by the district to redesignate a girls’ restroom to an all-gender facility at East High School. The department said the move was first reported to OCR in January, which initiated the investigation.

In an April 28 letter, Acting Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Craig Trainor wrote to DPS Superintendent Alex Marrero that by converting the bathroom, the district created a disparity in available facilities between the sexes and placed students in a “hostile environment.”

In the letter, Trainor said the initial move to convert the bathroom in East High “created inequities” because it effectively limited access to bathrooms in the school for students based on their biological sex, which was in violation of Title IX.

The district installed an all-gender restroom while the bathroom adjacent to it on the same floor remained a boys’ restroom, officials said.

DPS has since added another all-gender restroom on the same floor, Trainor said, which fixed concerns of “parity between the facilities designated for male and female students.”

The district said the move came after a student-led process. A 2020 district-wide student climate survey showed some students wanted access to more restroom options for different comfort levels and safety needs, officials said.

Denver Public Schools said the new all-gender restrooms featured 12-foot-tall partitions from the floor around toilets and urinals for security and privacy.

“The district’s failure to provide the required equal access to bathrooms based on students’ biological sex violated Title IX,” Trainor said in the letter.

Trainor added the district has committed to other Title IX violations by not including “biology-based definitions of ‘male’ and ‘female’ in its policies and practices.”

The department outlined a proposed resolution that the district must respond to in 10 days. If the district agrees, it would need to:

• Reopen the East High restroom back to a sex-specific multi-stall restroom.
• Change bathroom policies to allow access to bathrooms consistent with students’ biological sex, not their gender identity.
• Provide a biology-based definition for “male” and “female” in all policies and procedures that relate to Title IX.
• Send a written notice to schools affirming privacy, dignity, safety, and equal access in bathrooms based on sex.

Education Department Creates Resolution Plan

In the letter, Trainor said the department is creating a resolution plan based on the initial Title IX violations. DPS has 10 days to respond to the plan and either agree or reject it.

If the district accepts the resolution plan, it has 10 days to submit to the OCR a detailed plan to implement the four conditions set by the department.

OCR would then use the plan to “resolve” the case. However, if the district rejects the plan or the department does not accept the changes, it could move forward with enforcement action, which could result in federal sanctions and potential loss of federal funding.

Federal Officials State Students’ Safety, Privacy Violated

In a statement, Trainor said the district’s decision to create the all-gender bathroom “violated Title IX and its implementing regulations” by failing to provide students equal access to the facilities and “placing the school’s students in a hostile environment.”

“As a general matter, for school districts that receive federal taxpayer dollars, the choice is clear: Either they can try to accept these funds and follow federal law, or they can try to advance their ideological ambitions, but they cannot do both,” Trainor said. “If school districts in this country continue to harbor these ideological fanatics and the policies that sully our students’ educational experiences with sex discrimination, the Trump Administration will work relentlessly to hold them accountable.”

Denver Public Schools Says Decision Was Student-Led

Denver Public Schools has not publicly commented on the department’s resolution letter but has in the past defended its decision to open an all-gender bathroom on the basis that it was student-led.

“The original bathroom, a girls’ restroom, was redesigned by students into an all-gender restroom while the other restroom on that floor, a boys’ restroom, was not,” the district said in an April 22 statement. “This work was done in partnership with a student-led process to design a solution that would meet the needs of students in the changing landscape, with a focus on maintaining privacy and security.”

DPS also said students continue to have access to single-stall, all-gender restrooms and single-sex multi-stall restrooms across all the district’s schools.

District at Center of National Bathroom Debate

The controversy in Denver comes as the Biden administration has moved to reverse a Trump-era regulation preventing transgender girls from playing on sports teams that align with their gender identity.

Trump signed an executive order on Feb. 4 to prevent transgender girls from competing on school sports teams that do not match their biological sex. House Republicans have also taken aim at gender identity bathroom policies in schools and higher education.

In March, the U.S. House Education and Labor Committee held a hearing on the matter and one committee member, Republican Virginia Foxx of North Carolina, said gender identity policies harm students and set a bad precedent for future policies on diversity and equity.

White House Celebrates Victory Over Schools with Transgender Banning Policies

President Joe Biden has celebrated a ruling against an Idaho school district that adopted a policy to ban transgender girls from sports teams that do not align with their biological sex. The White House called it a victory for transgender students and an opportunity to “vindicate their rights.”

“Today’s decision is a victory for transgender students and students with disabilities and vindicates their rights,” the White House said in a statement on Thursday.

In a separate case this week, the Trump administration also warned that the University of Georgia discriminated against and harassed Jewish students in violation of Title VI, which prohibits race and national origin discrimination.