The U.S. Department of Education announced Wednesday that it is investigating more than a dozen schools across the country for their trans-inclusive athletics policies.

In a January 14 press release, the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) said it had initiated investigations into 14 K-12 school districts in California, Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, Nevada, New York, Pennsylvania, Vermont, and Washington. In addition to the school districts, OCR has also launched investigations into two California colleges and the New York and Hawaii state education departments.

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The investigations stem from complaints OCR has received alleging the 18 educational entities are in violation of Title IX, according to Wednesday’s release.

“The complaints assert that these entities… maintain policies or practices that discriminate on the basis of sex by permitting students to participate in sports based on their ‘gender identity,’ not biological sex,” the release reads.

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The Biden administration announced in 2022 that Title IX — the 1972 education law that prohibits discrimination in federally funded schools “on the basis of sex” — should be interpreted as protecting students against discrimination based on gender identity, but upon returning to office last January, the president signed an executive order rescinding that interpretation of the law. The following month, OCR notified U.S. schools that it would not enforce the Biden administration’s trans-inclusive interpretation of the law.

OCR alleges that trans-inclusive policies “jeopardize both the safety and the equal opportunities of women in educational programs and activities.”

In a statement, assistant education secretary for civil rights Kimberly Richey said OCR is “aggressively pursuing” what she described as “allegations of discrimination against women and girls.”

The administration “has made its position clear,” Richey said, “violations of women’s rights, dignity, and fairness are unacceptable. We will leave no stone unturned in these investigations to uphold women’s right to equal access in education programs — a fight that started over half a century ago and is far from finished.”

Richey also noted that the announcement of the investigations comes the same week as the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in two cases concerning state laws banning transgender women and girls from participating in women’s and girls’ sports. As has been widely reported, during Tuesday’s oral arguments, the court’s conservative supermajority seemed poised to uphold the anti-trans state laws.

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