Education Department finds Denver school broke Title IX with all-gender bathrooms

The U.S. Department of Education said on Thursday that it found Denver Public Schools violated Title IX, which prohibits sex-based discrimination in education, by establishing all-gender bathrooms and allowing students to use bathrooms that match their gender identity rather than their biological sex.

The department’s Office for Civil Rights opened an investigation in January, shortly after President Donald Trump returned to the White House, into Denver’s East High School after the school district converted a girl’s bathroom into an all-gender restroom while leaving another bathroom on the same floor just for boys. 

The district has said the change was made after a student-led process and that the bathroom had 12-foot-tall partitions around the toilets for privacy and security.

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A second all-gender restroom was later on the same floor, which the district said was done to address concerns of unfairness. The district said at the time that students would also continue to have access to gender-specific bathrooms and single-stall, all-gender restrooms.

The federal government said it sent the district a proposed resolution that includes four conditions to which it must agree within the next 10 days to resolve the matter and avoid facing the risk of “imminent enforcement action.”

“Denver Public Schools violated Title IX and its implementing regulations by converting a sex-segregated restroom designated for girls in East High School to an ‘all-gender’ facility and by allowing students to use the high school’s intimate facilities on the basis of their ‘gender identity’ rather than their biological sex,” Craig Trainor, the acting assistant secretary of the department’s Office for Civil Rights, said in a statement.

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“As a result, the District is creating a hostile environment for its students by endangering their safety, privacy, and dignity while denying them access to equal educational activities and opportunities,” he continued. “Denver is free to endorse a self-defeating gender ideology, but it is not free to accept federal taxpayer funds and harm its students in violation of Title IX. The Trump Administration will work relentlessly to hold accountable school districts that harbor the ideological fanatics and policies that sully students’ educational experience with sex discrimination.”

The proposed resolution would require the district to redesignate all-gender bathrooms back to sex-designated multi-stall restrooms, scrap any policies or guidance allowing students to access bathrooms based on gender identity rather than biological sex and adopt “biology-based definitions” for the words “male” and “female” in all policies and practices related to Title IX.

The district must also issue a memorandum to its schools affirming that they must provide access to bathrooms that “protect the privacy, dignity and safety of students and are comparably accessible to each sex.” It is also required to state that Title IX compliance ensures girls may not be discriminated against in any education program or activity.

Fox News Digital reached out to Denver Public Schools for comment.

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Under the Trump administration, federal officials have sought to target school districts for policies allowing students to use bathrooms or participate on sports teams that correspond with their gender identity.

The president signed an executive order in February to block transgender girls from participating on sports teams that do not match their biological sex.

Earlier this week, House Republicans introduced legislation to prohibit transgender girls from bathrooms or sports teams or restrooms that align with their gender identity and not their biological sex.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.