The U.S. Department of Justice on Monday threatened legal action against California public schools if they continued to allow trans athletes to compete in high school sports, calling the students’ participation unconstitutional and giving the schools a week to comply.
In a letter sent to public school districts in the state, Harmeet K. Dhillon, assistant attorney general for civil rights, said the California Interscholastic Federation’s 2013 bylaw that allowed trans athletes to compete violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution and discriminated against athletes on the basis of sex.
“Scientific evidence shows that upsetting the historical status quo and forcing girls to compete against males would deprive them of athletic opportunities and benefits because of their sex,” Ms. Dhillon wrote, referring to trans girls as males.
Elizabeth Sanders, a spokeswoman for the California Department of Education, said on Monday that the department was preparing to send guidance to the state’s school districts on how to respond, and that it would do so on Tuesday.
The Justice Department’s move came two days after a trans girl won championships in two girls’ events at the California state track and field meet, and less than a week after President Trump decried her inclusion in the competition, saying that he would cut federal funding to the state if it let her participate.
At the meet, held over two days in Clovis, Calif., the trans girl, AB Hernandez, won the girls’ high jump and triple jump, and also finished second in the long jump for Jurupa Valley High School, in what is arguably the most competitive high school meet in the nation. In a statement provided by the group TransFamily Support Services, her mother, Nereyda Hernandez, said that it was her daughter’s third year of competing in sports.
Jacqueline Paul, a spokeswoman for the Jurupa Unified School District, did not respond on Monday to requests for comment. Neither did Rebecca Brutlag, a spokeswoman for the California Interscholastic Federation, a nongovernmental body that regulates high school sports events in the state, including the state track and field meet.
After Mr. Trump’s threats last week to cut funding, the federation changed its rules regarding how the participation of trans athletes would affect other competitors, in an effort to make the event fair without excluding anyone.
Under the new rule, the athlete who finished immediately behind Ms. Hernandez would be elevated to share her placement. At the state meet, those athletes shared the podium with Ms. Hernandez, even though they technically had finished one spot behind her.
Two days before the meet, the Justice Department announced that it had sent legal notices to the federation, the state attorney general and state superintendent of public instruction, saying it was joining an ongoing U.S. Department of Education investigation into California’s transgender sports policies. It also had directed the U.S. attorney’s office in Southern California to review the state’s policies, it said.
The recent moves by the Justice Department were the latest examples of the Trump administration trying to keep trans women out of women’s sports. In February, Mr. Trump signed an executive order directing agencies to withdraw federal funding for any schools that refused to bar trans girls and women from women’s events.
“From now on, women’s sports will be only for women,” he said when signing the order. But some states, including Maine, Minnesota and California, have not complied.
His administration sued Maine because of it, threatening to hold back some federal funds from the state, and Attorney General Pam Bondi has suggested that Minnesota and California could expect similar lawsuits if they do not comply. Last month, Minnesota filed a pre-emptive lawsuit against Mr. Trump because of his trans athlete ban.
Despite the flurry of legal threats looming over the state meet last weekend, the event unfolded without major incident.
Juliet Macur is a national reporter at The Times, based in Washington, D.C., who often writes about America through the lens of sports.
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