On July 25, Gov. Glenn Youngkin announced the U.S. Department of Education (DOE) Office for Civil Rights (OCR) has determined that the gender policies of five Northern Virginia school divisions violate Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972. The five districts listed are Fairfax County, Loudoun County, Arlington County, Prince William County, and the City of Alexandria.
The OCR gave the school districts 10 days to comply with certain changes, or they may face enforcement consequences.
Youngkin’s Statement in Regards to Title IX Violations
The school division policies allow students of the opposite sex access to sex-separated facilities. They also allow students of the opposite sex to participate in sex-separated sports.
“These school divisions have been violating federal law, deliberately neglecting their responsibility to protect students’ safety, privacy and dignity, and ignoring parents’ rights. They got away with this behavior because the Biden Administration backed them up. Commonsense is back, with biological boys and girls in their own locker rooms and bathrooms, and boys out of girls sports,” Youngkin said in a release.
“Earlier this year, I asked Attorney General Jason Miyares to investigate Title IX violations in Loudoun County, where school officials shockingly targeted boys who were expressing their concern that a biological girl was being allowed in the boys locker room. It is time for these school leaders to do the right thing for students and parents,” Younkin said.
Miyares’ Statement
“I fought to prevent the Biden Administration’s radical Title IX re-interpretation from being imposed on Virginia’s public schools,” Miyares said in the release. “Those rules would have held federal education dollars hostage and forced Virginia’s public schools to submit to a radical, harmful, and ideologically driven agenda. Thankfully, we won that battle in court. Today, I am encouraged that the federal government is now working alongside us to restore sanity in public education.”
Youngkin said that, according to the U.S. Department of Education, all five jurisdictions found that students avoid using school restrooms whenever possible because of the schools’ policies. He also said “female students have witnessed male students inappropriately touching other students and watching female students change in a female locker room.”
DOE Action Items
DOE’s proposed resolution agreement requires the schools take the following actions:
- Rescind the policies and/or regulations which allow students to access intimate facilities based on their gender identity rather than their sex.
- Issue a memorandum to each division school that any future policies related to access to intimate facilities must be consistent with Title IX by separating students strictly on the basis of sex, and that Title IX ensures women’s equal opportunity in any education program or activity including athletic programs.
- Adopt biology-based definitions of the words “male” and “female” in all practices and policies relating to Title IX
According to the release, OCR has offered the school districts an opportunity “to voluntarily agree to these actions within 10 days or risk imminent enforcement consequences including referral to the U.S. Department of Justice.”
Feature image of 2023 CNN town hall courtesy YouTube/CNN
