5 Virginia school districts flaunt federal bathroom policies

Officials at some school districts in Virginia won’t change bathroom policies, defying the US Department of Education’s (DOE) Office for Civil Rights’ (OCR) request, a Washington, DC, news radio website reported Aug. 15.

WTOP reported that the Prince William County, Arlington, Alexandria City, Fairfax County, and Loudoun County public school districts are refusing to follow the OCR’s guidance.

The OCR had announced in a July 25 news release that it finished an investigation it had commenced in February of the five school districts after complaints “alleging that the Divisions have similar anti-discrimination policies pertaining to ‘transgender-identifying’ students, which violate the sex-based protections of Title IX.”

“The Divisions are also the subject of several lawsuits, informal complaints, and reports, which allege that students in the Divisions avoid using school restrooms whenever possible because of the schools’ policies, and that female students have witnessed male students inappropriately touching other students and watching female students change in a female locker room,” the release stated.

According to the OCR’s release, the districts’ policies indeed violate Title IX. The office gave the districts 10 days to rescind any policies that allow students to use bathrooms based on their “gender identity’” instead of their sex, tell each district school that all policies regarding bathroom access must separate students by sex and that Title IX requires women have equal opportunity to any education program, including athletic programs, and “adopt biology-based definitions” of the terms “male” and “female” in all rules related to Title IX.

If the districts didn’t make the changes, they would “risk imminent enforcement action including referral to the U.S. Department of Justice,” the office said.

Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin, a Republican, stated in a July 25 news release that the districts allow students of the opposite sex to use each other’s sex-specific facilities and play in each other’s sex-specific sports.

“These school divisions have been violating federal law, deliberately neglecting their responsibility to protect students’ safety, privacy and dignity, and ignoring parents’ rights,” Youngkin stated. “They got away with this behavior because the Biden Administration backed them up. Common sense is back, with biological boys and girls in their own locker rooms and bathrooms, and boys out of girls sports.”

Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares added in the same release that he sought to protect Virginia public schools from having to adopt the Biden administration’s interpretation of Title IX.

“Concerned parents have the right to speak their minds and demand accountability from their local schools, and our daughters should have the same opportunities as our sons,” Miyares wrote. “The safety, privacy, and dignity of every student in Virginia is an absolute non-negotiable.”

As CatholicVote previously reported, the Supreme Court upheld Tennessee’s law protecting children from undergoing certain treatments for gender dysphoria.

“In so holding,” the OCR’s release explained, “the Supreme Court acknowledged that a person’s identification as ‘transgender’ is distinct from a person’s ‘biological sex.’” 

The districts made statements Aug. 15 saying that their present policies follow state and federal law, WTOP’s article reported.

Madi Biedermann, deputy assistant secretary for communications with the DOE, told WTOP that the DOE will start pausing or ending federal financial assistance to the districts.

“The Virginia districts will have to defend their embrace of radical gender ideology over ensuring the safety of their students,” she said, according to the article.

Prince William County School Board Chair Babur Lateef told WTOP that he doesn’t know how the DOE could penalize his district because it doesn’t receive Title IX-tied money.

“We have no money coming to that, so we do not believe the federal government can cut any funds,” Lateef said in the article.

Michelle Reid, Fairfax County Public Schools’ superintendent, said in a letter to district staff and families that the penalties involve losing up to $160 million in federal funding and the five districts had unsuccessfully asked for a three-month extension “to engage in thoughtful discourse.”

School district attorneys wrote letters to OCR Regional Director Bradley Burke explaining their reasoning and requesting staying the matter until the Supreme Court provides further direction. 

Fairfax County Public Schools, Alexandria City Public Schools, Arlington Public Schools, and Prince William County Public Schools cited the cases West Virginia v BPJ, a West Virginia law that limits participation in women’s sports programs to girls, and Grimm v. Gloucester County School Board.

Loudoun County School Board Chair Melinda Mansfield and Loudoun County Public Schools Superintendent Aaron Spence wrote in a joint statement that their current policy of separating students by “gender identity” when it comes to bathrooms and locker rooms “is based directly on controlling precedent in Virginia from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.”

“After consultation with legal counsel, the Board voted 6-3 not to comply with this request due to the tension between the OCR position and current law,” they said in the statement.A coalition of LGBT organizations wrote a letter to the school boards and superintendents of the districts, thanking them for having “faced down the illegal and cruel demands of the U.S. Department of Education and refused to sell out our students.” According to the letter, more than 3,000 residents of northern Virginia signed letters supporting their decisions.

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