The U.S. Department of Education (ED) announced Monday it is terminating Title IX-based civil rights agreements with five school districts and one community college that had been negotiated under previous administrations to protect transgender students — the latest move in a broader campaign against gender identity policies in American schools.
The affected institutions span four states: Cape Henlopen School District in Delaware, Delaware Valley School District in rural eastern Pennsylvania, Fife School District in Washington, La Mesa-Spring Valley School District and Sacramento City Unified School District in California, and Taft College, a community college in California’s Central Valley.
The agreements, reached under the Biden and Obama administrations, had required schools to implement faculty training on students’ preferred names and pronouns, allow students to use bathrooms consistent with their gender identity, and take other steps the federal government had deemed necessary to comply with Title IX’s prohibition on sex discrimination. With the terminations, those obligations are gone.
The ED’s Office for Civil Rights framed the move as a corrective measure, arguing that prior administrations had misapplied the law. Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Kimberly Richey said in a written statement that “the Trump Administration is removing the unnecessary and unlawful burdens that prior Administrations imposed on schools in its relentless pursuit of a radical transgender agenda.”
Civil rights advocates pushed back sharply. Shiwali Patel, senior director of education justice at the National Women’s Law Center, said the rescissions put vulnerable students at greater risk. “This is part of the Trump administration’s assault on education and assault on those who are most vulnerable to experiencing discrimination and harassment, including trans students,” Patel said. “They’ve made their intention very clear in wanting to erase protections for trans people.”
The practical consequences are already visible in at least one district. Delaware Valley, which received notice of the rescission in February, has since voted to roll back its antidiscrimination protections for transgender students entirely — going beyond simply lifting the federal obligations. Sacramento City Unified, by contrast, said Monday it “remains committed to the support of our LGBTQ+ students and staff.”
The move is unusual but not unprecedented for this administration. The Education Department took similar action last year, terminating one agreement related to book removals at a Georgia school and another addressing inequitable treatment of Native students in South Dakota.
Monday’s announcement fits into a wider pattern of actions the Trump administration has taken targeting transgender rights — in schools and beyond. The administration has filed lawsuits against California and Minnesota over state policies permitting transgender students to compete in interscholastic sports, opened civil rights investigations into schools over their transgender-related policies, blocked transgender individuals from updating sex markers on passports, and moved to restrict gender-affirming medical care for minors.
For the students and families who had relied on the now-rescinded agreements, the message from Washington is unmistakable: federal backing for the protections they were once promised is no longer guaranteed.
