Following through on Donald Trump’s campaign promise to eradicate “transgender insanity,” the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) has launched a probe targeting a Denver high school’s all-gender restroom.
Denver East High School, the largest in the Denver Public Schools system, caused controversy when it recently converted the only girls’ restroom on the second floor into an all-gender restroom, while leaving the boys’ room on the same floor untouched. With a word choice that seemed like a Freudian slip, district spokesman Scott Pribble confirmed to Denver’s 9News that “the transition of the girls’ bathroom…occurred over the winter break,” but denied that there was any agenda other than convenience. However, the Denver Post reports that the school board in 2020 set forth a requirement that every school must have at least one all-gender restroom.
The “transitioned” restroom’s stalls are divided by 12-foot partitions and metal blocks to prevent peeking through the space around the door. Earlier this month, East High parent Lori Ramos told the school board that the move was way out of line:
“[The] Administration has sacrificed the comfort of these young females for this dubious change by now limiting their options…We, as adults, should be protecting students at all costs, not using minors for this social experiment. This in my opinion is unlawful, immoral and it is, in fact, a form of abuse.”
The Trump administration’s move against the Denver district is likely the first of many across the country. “Let me be clear: It is a new day in America, and under President Trump, OCR will not tolerate discrimination of any kind,” said Department of Education Acting Assistant Secretary of OCR Craig Trainor in a statement. “I have directed OCR’s Denver regional office to investigate this matter fully.”
Denver Public Schools is the largest district in the state, with some 85,000 students, 14,000 employees, 200 schools and a $1.45 billion budget. Superintendent Marrero’s official profile contains a red flag alerting readers to his wokeness: He describes himself as the first “Latinx” head of the district. That leftist-contrived, gender-neutral alternative to “Latino” is rejected by 75% of Latinos who are familiar with the term.
In a notification letter to district superintendent Alex Marrero, Trainor said the “investigation will examine whether the District discriminates against students on the basis of sex by installing multi-stall all gender restrooms in District school facilities, in violation of Title IX.” The district is susceptible to charge thanks to its receipt of federal money — $96 million during the current academic year alone.
Some doubt that the investigation will ultimately compel a reversal. “They are arguing that an all-gender restroom isn’t comparable to a single-gender restroom,” the Association of Title IX Administrators’ Brett Sokolow told the Post. “You’d have to establish that somehow you have a right to a single-sex bathroom, and while the Trump administration may believe that, I don’t know if that will be upheld by the courts.”
The district scoffed at the development. “It is unprecedented for the Office for Civil Rights to admittedly initiate its own investigation, into a single bathroom, as a result of local media coverage,” said Pribble in a district statement. He and others should brace for many more precedent-breaking moves by a Trump administration that seems hell-bent on smashing government-imposed woke-ism in all its forms.
Loading…
Read the full article here