DOJ launches Title IX probe into California over state law allowing trans athletes to play womens sports

The Justice Department opened an inquiry Wednesday into whether a California state law allowing transgender student athletes to compete in women’s sports violates federal Title IX rules against sex discrimination. California Attorney General Rob Bonta, State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond, the Jurupa Unified School District and the California Interscholastic Federation (CIF) were informed of the investigation in “letters of legal notice” sent by the DOJ. The CIF oversees high school sports in the state, and the Jurupa Unified School District is home to the school where a transgender track athlete recently won titles in the girls’ long jump and triple jump. “The investigation is to determine whether California, its senior legal, educational, and athletic organizations, and the school district are engaging in a pattern or practice of discrimination on the basis of sex,” the DOJ said in a statement. The probe was opened in response to a lawsuit filed by the families of two girls at a Riverside, Calif., high school, alleging that the state statute “is harming hundreds – if not thousands – of female students by removing opportunities for female athletes to be champions in their own sports, robbing them of podium positions and awards, and creating unsafe and intimidating environments in their bathrooms and locker rooms” — and is at odds with Title IX. One of the plaintiffs in the case – an 11th-grade female cross-country athlete – claims she was removed from her position on the Martin Luther King High School girls’ varsity cross-country team to make room for a biological male athlete and, as a result, was prevented from participating in elite competitions and being recruited by colleges and universities. The lawsuit further alleges that the Riverside Unified School District, and Martin Luther King High School’s principal, assistant principal and athletic director “violated the constitutional rights” of the 11th-g...