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By Melanie Asmar/Chalkbeat
Denver Public Schools Superintendent Alex Marrero said Friday that the Trump administration is pushing “an anti-trans agenda through the weaponization of Title IX,” a federal law the administration says DPS violated when it converted a girls’ restroom to an all-gender one.
“They have claimed Title IX prohibits the conversion of a girls’ restroom to an all-gender restroom,” Marrero said in a statement. “They now claim Title IX prohibits the use of any multi-stall, all-gender restroom. This has never been true; it remains untrue today.”
Marrero’s comments come one day after the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights announced that DPS’ restroom conversion at East High School violated Title IX, which prohibits sex-based discrimination. Officials with the Office for Civil Rights said that the all-gender restroom at East High places a burden on girls to seek a single-sex restroom elsewhere, and that DPS is endorsing “a self-defeating gender ideology.”
Marrero strongly disagreed.
“To our LGBTQ+ students, families, and supporters, we see you, and we will not stand for these attempts at your erasure,” Marrero said.
However, Marrero did not say whether or not DPS will comply with the Office for Civil Rights’ demands, which include reverting the district’s all-gender restrooms to single-sex restrooms. A DPS spokesperson said, “We are still looking at our options.”
The U.S. Department of Education did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Marrero’s statement.
DPS’ federal funding could be at risk. The U.S. Department of Education recently sanctioned five Virginia school districts that it found to be violating Title IX for allowing students to use restrooms and locker rooms that align with their gender identity. All federal funding for those districts — a total of more than $50 million — will now be distributed by reimbursement only, meaning the districts will have to pay those expenses up front.
Nearly 7% of Denver Public Schools’ budget last year, or about $96 million, was federal funding, according to district budget documents.
The Office for Civil Rights on Thursday gave DPS 10 days to agree with a proposed resolution.
In addition to reverting all restrooms to single-sex, the proposed resolution would require the district to rescind any policies that allow students to use restrooms based on their gender identity, adopt “biology-based” definitions for “male” and “female,” and issue a memo to all schools saying they “must provide intimate facilities that protect the privacy, dignity, and safety of its students and are comparably accessible to each sex.”
In his statement, Marrero said the language proposed by the Office for Civil Rights is “the dangerous rhetoric and definitions of their administration.”
“We will protect all of our students from this hostile administration while we continue to raise the bar on achievement,” Marrero said.
Melanie Asmar is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Colorado. Contact Melanie at [email protected].
Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools.
