The Trump administration said this week that it would withhold more than $65 million in federal grants from magnet schools in three large school districts after they refused to overhaul their policies regarding transgender and nonbinary students or to change their diversity and equity programs.
The three school districts — in New York City, Chicago and Fairfax, Va. — were accused by the federal Education Department last week of violating civil rights law.
The Trump administration called for the nation’s biggest school system, in New York City, to overhaul guidelines that allow students to use bathrooms and to participate in physical education and athletic programs based on their gender identity.
In Fairfax County, the most populous suburb in the Washington region, federal officials requested similar changes to gender policies. That district previously faced scrutiny from the administration over its diversity efforts.
And in Chicago, home to the fourth-largest U.S. school system, the administration demanded the elimination of the district’s Black Student Success Plan, accusing the city of unfairly distributing resources to a single group of students.
The threats from the federal Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights came as the Trump administration has opposed what it calls “illegal D.E.I.” initiatives. The department contends that the rights of girls are violated when school policies recognize transgender identities.
The Education Department sent notices to the three districts on Sept. 16 and gave them one week to meet the demands. If they refused, they would forfeit funding from a federal effort known as the Magnet Schools Assistance Program, which was developed decades ago to promote desegregation by providing money to establish magnet schools with diverse student populations.
By Thursday, the districts had declined to overhaul their policies, and the Trump administration announced that it would cancel the funding, which was expected to flow during the next three years. Several thousand students in the three school systems are expected to be affected.
Julie Hartman, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Education Department, said that the federal government would not “rubber-stamp civil rights compliance” for the districts “while they blatantly discriminate against students based on race and sex.”
“These are public schools, funded by hardworking American families, and parents have every right to expect an excellent education — not ideological indoctrination masquerading as inclusive policy,” she said in a statement.
The administration’s initial notice that the funding could be in jeopardy provoked an especially large uproar in New York when Mayor Eric Adams began criticizing the school system’s gender policies during news conferences and media interviews — starting one day after the city received the Education Department’s letter.
Mr. Adams, who had not expressed concern with the city’s guidelines since taking office in 2022, said last week that he did not “believe a safe environment is allowing boys and girls to use the same facility at the same time,” and pushed the school system to reconsider the policies.
Under the state’s Human Rights Law, denying the use of facilities because of a person’s gender identity is considered unlawful discrimination.
New York City’s education officials said that the funding cut could affect roughly 8,500 students, possibly leading to unfair rollbacks including canceled courses.
Kayla Mamelak Altus, a spokeswoman for Mr. Adams, said in a statement that the federal government was “threatening to defund our children’s education as a tool to change policies it doesn’t like.” She added that City Hall was reviewing its options, which include litigation.
She added that “while Mayor Adams may not agree with every rule or policy, we will always stand up to protect critical resources” for students.
Federal officials criticized similar gender policies in Chicago. But the Trump administration took particular issue with the district’s plan to assist Black students, including by doubling the number of Black male teachers hired by 2029 and by enrolling more Black pupils in advanced courses.
In a letter last week, the administration called the program “textbook racial discrimination” under Title VI, which seeks to prevent such discrimination.
Elizabeth K. Barton, the acting general counsel for the Chicago Board of Education, said in a letter to the federal Education Department on Tuesday that it had “failed to cite any violation of law or provide any evidence of harm done to our students.”
Ms. Barton wrote that “this one-sided process not only undermines the fairness and integrity our students deserve but overtly disregards” the procedures of the department’s Office for Civil Rights.
A spokeswoman for Fairfax County’s public schools did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The county’s school system, which enrolls more than 180,000 students, has several magnet schools.
They include the Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, which is regarded as one of the nation’s pre-eminent high schools and which the Trump administration began investigating this spring over accusations that its admission system discriminates against Asian American students to favor other racial groups.
The administration’s decision to slash funding this week, though, focused largely on the district’s policy allowing students to use bathrooms and locker rooms that align with their gender identity, arguing that it violates Title IX, which prohibits sex discrimination at educational institutions that receive federal funding.
Dana Goldstein contributed reporting.
Troy Closson is a Times education reporter focusing on K-12 schools.
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