The Trump administration said that California was in violation of the 1973 Title IX federal civil rights law over transgender sports athletes and threatened “enforcement action” if their polices remained unchanged.
In February, the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights opened an investigation into transgender athletes being allowed to compete against girls in California, and on Wednesday, Education Sec. Linda McMahon confirmed that the state was violating the civil rights law.
‘The state must swiftly come into compliance with Title IX or face the consequences that follow.’
McMahon called on California to “voluntarily agree” to reverse the policies or face “imminent enforcement action” from the federal government, according to the Los Angeles Times.
“Although Governor Gavin Newsom admitted months ago it was ‘deeply unfair’ to allow men to compete in women’s sports, both the California Department of Education and the California Interscholastic Federation continued as recently as a few weeks ago to allow men to steal female athletes’ well-deserved accolades and to subject them to the indignity of unfair and unsafe competitions,” McMahon said.
“The Trump Administration will relentlessly enforce Title IX protections for women and girls, and our findings today make clear that California has failed to adhere to its obligations under federal law,” she added. “The state must swiftly come into compliance with Title IX or face the consequences that follow.”
On Friday, parents in Costa Mesa protested against transgender competition and presented a petition with tens of thousands of signatures to the CIF, which governs high school competitions.
Chino Valley Unified School Board President Sonja Shaw, who has been a vocal activist against the transgender policies, praised the statement from the Education Department.
“CIF and CDE were warned. Over and over,” Shaw said to the Times. “But instead of listening, they laughed. They smirked. They mocked parents and anyone that stood for the truth and let our daughters be mocked, sidelined, and erased. They handed girls over to an ideology that stole their privacy, safety, and achievements. Now, they’ve been federally exposed as lawbreakers.”
Trump has previously used the threat of pulling federal money from states in order to persuade them to comply with his executive orders, but California officials have rebuffed such threats on the basis that the state is a net contributor to the federal government.
“Californians pay the bills for the federal government,” Newsom said on social media earlier in June. “We pay over $80 BILLION more in taxes than we get back. Maybe it’s time to cut that off.”
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