This week, the Trump administration terminated or reworked agreements in settled gender-discrimination cases across five school districts and one community college. Such a reversal of closed Title IX matters appears to be without precedent and takes matters a step beyond Trump’s previous efforts to roll back DEI protections.

“To go back and terminate agreements and say all of the policies and procedures should be reversed as if nothing ever happened, that is very different and a very big deal,” a former supervising lawyer for the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) with the Education Department, Nancy Potter, told the New York Times.

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The agreements that were rescinded all involved Title IX protections against sex-based discrimination and how the Biden and Obama administrations interpreted Title IX protections to include trans students’ rights in subjects including pronoun usage, names, and access to gendered facilities.

However, the Trump administration has put forward its own interpretation of Title IX, claiming that it requires anti-trans discrimination. This is part of a long battle over the law that bans discrimination on the basis of sex in schools.

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That justification is now being used to overturn agreements that called on schools to provide better protection and training for teachers on how to respect a student’s gender identity. A press release from the Department of Education this week lays out the administration’s position.

“Resolution agreements are used by OCR to require schools to take specific actions to resolve noncompliance with federal civil rights law,” the press release says. “Previous Administrations distorted the law contrary to its plain meaning to police discrimination on the basis of ‘gender identity,’ not sex, and imposed resolution agreements with no legal foundation, but rather, based on an ideologically-driven interpretation of Title IX. They illegally saddled school districts with Title IX violations for actions such as “improper use of preferred pronouns” or “asking questions about a student’s preferred ‘gender.’”

The Biden administration interpreted Title IX’s ban on discrimination on the basis of sex to ban anti-trans discrimination because it is impossible to discriminate against trans people without taking sex assigned at birth into account. This reasoning was the basis for the Supreme Court’s 2020 decision in Bostock v. Clayton Co.

One of the settlements that was rescinded was a 2024 agreement in the Sacramento City Unified School District in California. The Sacramento Bee reported that in 2022, a male student filed a complaint alleging that they were discriminated against by a teacher who refused to use the correct pronouns, was not given time to join the boys’ group for an activity, and was misgendered by the vice principal.

The OCR under President Joe Biden reached a settlement in which the school district had to provide training on Title IX policies and update its complaint procedures.

Similarly, the Trump administration has removed portions of the 2023 agreement with Taft College in California that called for training on names and pronouns, as well as avoiding creating a hostile academic environment.

In most of the cases, the immediate impact of these reversals will not be felt. The Sacramento school district has stayed beside trans students, stating, “The Sacramento City Unified School District remains committed to the support of our LGBTQ+ students and staff.” Similarly, the interim president of Taft College implied that no action was required because the case was settled three years ago, and the Superintendent of Schools in La Mesa-Spring Valley in California felt that it was just a political move, noting it “seems like it’s just meant to be a statement on behalf of the Trump administration.”

However, more problems may become evident down the road. If the school districts comply with the Trump administration’s demands, they may find themselves in violation of state and local laws. Conversely, not conceding could threaten federal funding: The Sacramento school district alone could lose $170 million in federal funding.

In Delaware, that problem has already played out. The Title IX case, first brought in 2014 in the Delaware Valley School District, led to updated policies prohibiting the denial of a student’s name change request and of restroom and locker room access.

Those policies were updated to align with Title IX, but the school board was told in February that they must be rolled back to comply with Trump’s vision of Title IX. That Delaware school board has now voted unanimously to roll back the policies, noting the threat to federal funding, according to Radio Catskill.

Trans advocates called out the decision to end the settlements.

“This sends a chilling alarm that trans students really are a target of this administration,” said Chelby Chestnut, executive director of the transgender Law Center. “It’s extremely concerning. Students should be safe to go to school and get an education.”

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