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Donald Trump’s Dept. of Education says school’s all-gender restroom is “sexist”
January 30 2025, 08:15

The Trump administration launched an investigation on Tuesday against Denver Public Schools for converting a girl’s restroom in the district to one accommodating all genders. 

The Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) announced it’s investigating alleged discrimination in the district after a second-floor girl’s bathroom at East High School was converted to an all-gender bathroom, while the nearby boy’s restroom remained exclusively for males.

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Trump administration ends Joe Biden’s efforts to fight book bans
Trump’s Department of Education called the suggestion that rightwingers are trying to ban book a “hoax.”

“The alarming report that the Denver Public Schools District denied female students a restroom comparable with their male counterparts appears to directly violate the civil rights of the District’s female students,” said acting Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Craig Trainor.

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“Let me be clear: It is a new day in America, and under President Trump, OCR will not tolerate discrimination of any kind. I have directed OCR’s Denver regional office to investigate this matter fully,” Trainor added. 

Trainor sent a letter to Denver Public Schools on Tuesday demanding access to data and personnel.  

During the presidential campaign, the Department of Education was a prime target of then-candidate Trump, who pledged to gut the department and staff it solely with “a secretary for the Secretary.”

Far from shutting the department down, Trump is now weaponizing the DOE in pursuit of his anti-LGBTQ+ agenda — and using the same tools employed by the Biden administration in its pursuit of LGBTQ+-inclusivity.

The OCR said the bathroom conversion is in violation of Title IX, which mandates that schools which receive federal funds “may provide separate toilet, locker room, and shower facilities on the basis of sex, but such facilities provided for students of one sex shall be comparable to such facilities provided for students of the other sex.” 

Denver Public Schools spokesperson Scott Pribble pushed back on the accusation.

“This bathroom was added as the result of a student-led process that reflects our commitment to inclusivity and student voice, leadership, and empowerment, providing a welcoming space for all,” he said in a statement reported by Reuters.

On Friday, the DOE ended federal efforts to reign in an epidemic of book-banning in local school districts by right-wing groups targeting books with LGBTQ+ content and others addressing racism.

The announcement was made in dismissive, partisan and MAGA-inflected language in a press release titled “U.S. Department of Education Ends Biden’s Book Ban Hoax.”

“Attorneys quickly confirmed that books are not being ‘banned,’ but that school districts, in consultation with parents and community stakeholders, have established commonsense processes by which to evaluate and remove age-inappropriate materials,” the department claimed, reframing book bans as a matter of “parents’ rights”.

“The department is beginning the process of restoring the fundamental rights of parents to direct their children’s education,” said Acting Assistant Secretary Trainor. 

Between January 1 and August 31, 2024, the American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom found that 1,128 unique titles were challenged in public, school, and academic libraries. About 47% of the titles contained LGBTQ+ or BIPOC themes.

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