The U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights on Friday announced an investigation into the Oregon Department of Education amid allegations that ODE’s policies allow males to compete in female sports.
According to a press release posted to the DOE's website, ODE is in violation of Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972’s prohibition on sex discrimination.
OCR said it opened the investigation based on a compliant it received from the America First Policy Institute, a non-profit policy center, which seeks to defend individual liberty, equal opportunity, and the rule of law.
“In the last six months, the Trump Administration has made historic strides in cleaning up the countless failures of the Biden Administration, including the prior Administration’s dedication to gender ideology extremism. Oregon appears to have missed the message: The Trump Administration will not allow educational institutions that receive federal funds to continue trampling upon women’s rights,” said acting assistant secretary for Civil Rights Craig Trainor. “If Oregon is permitting males to compete in women’s sports, it is allowing these males to steal the accolades and opportunities that female competitors have rightfully earned through hard work and grit, while callously disregarding women’s and girls’ safety, dignity, and privacy. Title IX does not permit that shameful arrangement, and we will not tolerate it."
According to AFPI’s complaint, ODE’s guidance specifies that it will follow Oregon’s “nondiscrimination law” holding that “schools are prohibited from excluding gender expansive students from participating in school athletics and activities that align with their...gender identity.”
The DOE asserts that state laws do not override federal anti-discrimination laws, and ODE and its member schools remain subject to Title IX and its implementing regulations.
The complaint alleges that multiple high-school aged female athletes in Oregon lost “medal awards, placements, and other competitive opportunities” to biological males and suffered “heightened stress, intimidation, and emotional distress” in anticipation of competing against them. It further alleges that ODE “chilled speech and coerced silence” from these female athletes, who were reportedly “explicitly or implicitly told by school authorities not to question or complain about the inclusion of male athletes in girls’ categories.”
According to Oregon Public Broadcasting, Oregon’s public K-12 schools are primarily funded by state dollars, with nearly 11% of public school funding in the state coming from federal sources in the 2020-2021 school year.
If ODE found to be in violation of Title IX, the U.S. Department could stop the flow of federal funding to the state.
