DOJ Civil Rights Division sets Title IX deadline for California on transgender athletes in girls' sports

FIRST ON FOX – The Department of Justice demanded California’s nationalist precocious schools corroborate by adjacent week that they bash not let transgender athletes to vie successful girls’ sports, escalating a national enquiry into the authorities implicit its compliance with Title IX.

Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon, who heads the DOJ Civil Rights Division, said successful a missive obtained by Fox News Digital that nationalist schoolhouse districts indispensable "certify successful writing" by June 9 that they volition not abide by the the California Interscholastic Federation’s sex individuality rules.

"Knowingly depriving pistillate students of diversion opportunities and benefits connected the ground of their enactment would represent unconstitutional enactment favoritism nether the Equal Protection Clause," Dhillon warned successful the letter, obtained by Fox News Digital. 

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Harmeet Dhillon, nominee to beryllium an adjunct lawyer general, testifies during her Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation proceeding successful Dirksen gathering connected Wednesday, Feb 26, 2025. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)

The California Interscholastic Federation governs nationalist and backstage precocious schoolhouse sports successful the authorities and has a bylaw that requires its members to admit sex individuality successful sports.

All students should beryllium capable to enactment successful schoolhouse sports "in a mode that is accordant with their sex identity, irrespective of the sex listed connected a student’s records," the bylaw states.

Dhillon, a erstwhile California-based blimpish attorney, said the certifications she is seeking from the nationalist schoolhouse districts volition "ensure compliance" with Title IX and assistance them to "avoid ineligible liability."

Her request pits nationalist schoolhouse districts against the California Interscholastic Federation, the entity that schools are required to comply with to enactment successful authorities sports competitions.

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Fox News Digital reached retired to the California Interscholastic Federation’s enforcement manager for comment.

Dhillon's determination comes aft she and the U.S. lawyer for the Central District of California announced past week that they were investigating the California Interscholastic Federation and different nationalist entities implicit whether the state's laws conflicted with Trump's mentation of Title IX.

READ THE LETTER BELOW. APP USERS: CLICK HERE

When Trump took office, helium ordered national agencies to enforce Title IX successful a mode that excluded sex individuality aft the Biden medication attempted to reinterpret the statute.

Title IX, passed successful 1972, is simply a landmark civilian rights instrumentality designed to forestall enactment favoritism successful schools. Former President Barack Obama made the first, albeit unenforceable, effort to reinterpret Title IX astatine the extremity of his word by directing schools that received national funds to let transgender students to usage bathrooms and enactment successful sports that corresponded to their sex identities.

Trump quashed those efforts successful his archetypal word and, successful coordination with erstwhile Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, underwent a lengthy process of creating caller rules wrong the Education Department to necessitate schools to adhere to the long-held meaning of Title IX.

Former President Joe Biden made embracing sex individuality and re-imagining Title IX a pillar of his presidency by moving to unravel the Trump administration's caller rules. Biden was, however, met with galore injunctions and ne'er capable to get his mentation of Title IX disconnected the ground.

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President Donald Trump, left, and archetypal woman Melania Trump be the nationalist supplication work astatine the Washington National Cathedral, Tuesday, Jan. 21, 2025, successful Washington.  (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

Now, Trump has aggressively sought to enforce his archetypal term's rules. He signed a drawstring of enforcement orders focused on, arsenic 1 bid described it, the "biological world of sex," and his agencies person sent request letters and opened national inquiries into states that are resistant to the administration's efforts.

In summation to targeting California, the DOJ sued Maine implicit Title IX, arguing its authorities Education Department was retired of compliance with national law, citing a transgender jock who won a girls' pole-vaulting contention successful February.

Maine Gov. Janet Mills (D) has downplayed the matter, telling section quality astatine 1 constituent that determination were "like two" transgender athletes successful her state.

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California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D), meanwhile, has shown an openness to Trump's presumption that transgender athletes competing successful girls' sports is unfair, to the chagrin of immoderate of Newsom's wide base.

Newsom besides precocious said helium supported a caller aviator initiative by the California Interscholastic Federation to let immoderate pistillate way and tract jock who would person qualified for an upcoming authorities title to vie if they had been displaced by a transgender athlete.