On March 13, Kimberly Richey, the U.S. Department of Education’s assistant secretary for civil rights, leveled serious allegations against Jeffco Public Schools.
Colorado’s second-largest school district, she said in a statement, had made “sweeping” violations of Title IX, the landmark law passed in 1972 to ensure women and girls can participate in school activities without harassment or discrimination.
Jeffco Public Schools’ offense? The district has policies supporting transgender students — such as allowing them to access bathrooms based on their gender identities — that conflict with the Trump administration’s new interpretation of Title IX.
“The district’s decision to prioritize ‘gender identity’ over ensuring equal access for its female students is unconscionable,” Richey said at the time.
Yet Title IX attorneys and experts interviewed by The Denver Post disagree with how the Trump administration is applying the law, which they say doesn’t require schools to prohibit transgender athletes from playing on teams that align with their gender identities.
“The way that Title IX is being used currently around this debate is quite overblown and not really proportionate to the actual issues in the country,” said Ashlyn Hare, a Title IX attorney with Hutchinson Black and Cook in Boulder.
The federal government’s new interpretation of Title IX has left Jeffco Public Schools in a bind.
The Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights says that if Jeffco doesn’t comply with an order to change its policies, the district could lose more than $50 million in federal funding for things such as special education programs and school lunches.
Jeffco counters that changing policies would place the school district in violation of Colorado’s Anti-Discrimination Act, which protects transgender students’ access to facilities based on their gender identities.
So Jeffco Public Schools is taking the matter to court, arguing in a recently filed federal lawsuit that Colorado state law trumps the Education Department’s new Title IX interpretation.
Attorneys specializing in Title IX agree with the district.
Efforts to ban transgender athletes from girls sports have gained traction under the second Trump administration, which last year rolled back previous guidance that expanded Title IX’s scope to include harassment or exclusion based on sexual orientation and gender identity as a form of discrimination.
The administration strictly defines gender based on the sex a person was assigned at birth and has used the federal government’s new definition of Title IX — which was issued via a presidential executive order — to investigate K-12 districts nationwide that have policies supporting transgender students.
“To follow an executive order that is contrary to state law is to make a decision about policy and politics as opposed to what is… the binding law in your state,” said Scott Lewis, co-founder of the Association of Title IX Administrators.
At least two Colorado districts — Jeffco and Denver Public Schools — have gotten caught up in the Education Department’s rollback of Title IX protections for transgender students.
The agency launched one investigation into DPS last year after the district built a gender-neutral bathroom at East High School and a second Title IX probe in July after a teacher was accused of making female students kiss each other in class.
But the Education Department has been more aggressive in pursuing its case against Jeffco Public Schools, spurring the district to sue the agency last month. The 55-page lawsuit details Jeffco’s fight with the Trump administration, from nine months of silence to the allegation that dozens of boys are taking girls’ spots on sports teams.
Losing federal funding would significantly hurt Jeffco Public Schools, which recently slashed $45 million from its budget and cut 139 jobs. The district, which has a nearly $1 billion budget, still had to use $13 million from reserves to balance the budget for the 2026-27 fiscal year, despite those reductions.
“Protecting our inclusive student culture is worth the investment,” said Erin Kenworthy, vice president of Jeffco’s Board of Education. “This fight came to us. We weren’t looking for it.”
An investigation is launched
The Office for Civil Rights first revealed its investigation into the district last year, calling it one of several actions the agency was taking in recognition of “Title IX month.”
“This administration will fight on every front to protect women’s and girls’ sports, intimate spaces, dormitories and living quarters, and fraternal and panhellenic organizations,” Secretary of Education Linda McMahon said in a statement at the time.
The Office for Civil Rights sent Jeffco Public Schools notice of the investigation on June 2, 2025, and the district responded to the government’s request a month later. But the district didn’t hear back from the department until earlier this year, when it announced that it had determined Jeffco violated Title IX.
Between June 2025 and March, the Office of Civil Rights did not interview staff or students, nor did the agency send employees to visit the school district as is typical in such investigations, Jeffco’s lawsuit alleged.
“Jeffco did not receive any communication at all from OCR during the investigation,” the district’s attorneys wrote in the lawsuit.
A spokesperson for the Office for Civil Rights did not respond to an interview request.
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The agency concluded Jeffco Public Schools violated Title IX based solely on allegations made by a family that sued the district two years ago, the lawsuit states.
The family alleged the district assigned their 11-year-old daughter the same bed as a transgender girl on a trip in 2023. A federal judge dismissed the family’s lawsuit last year.
In Jeffco’s lawsuit, attorneys argued that the Office of Civil Rights can’t assert that the family’s allegations against the district are factual because the office didn’t conduct an investigation.
The Office for Civil Rights also alleged more than 60 male students were competing on girls sports teams at Jeffco Public Schools, an accusation the district denies. The boys, according to Jeffco, are managers, trainers or mascots — not athletes.
The federal agency ordered Jeffco to take three steps to resolve the alleged Title IX violations, including issuing a public statement that the district will comply with the Trump administration’s interpretation of the law and its definition of the words “sex,” “male” and “female”.
The district must also reverse policies supporting transgender students and give bathroom access and sports-team eligibility based on the sex students were assigned at birth, according to the lawsuit.
Third, the district is ordered to review any recognitions, including awards, given to boys competing on girls sports teams and restore the accolades to any girls excluded because of their presence.
The district’s attorneys argued in the lawsuit that Jeffco Public Schools can’t comply with the federal government’s orders because it has to follow the Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act.
‘Kind of a scare tactic’
An executive order represents the Trump administration’s interpretation of a law — not the law itself, Title IX attorneys who spoke to The Post said.
“An executive order doesn’t really mean anything,” Hare said. “…(It) was kind of a scare tactic.”
This means school systems in states without protections for transgender students can follow the president’s executive order without any problems, but that’s not the case in states like Colorado, where there are laws that conflict with the order, Lewis added.
A school district that chooses to follow the executive order over state law is more likely to lose in state court, he said.
Such a case is already making its way through the courts.
District 49 near Colorado Springs has sued state officials, arguing that the state’s Anti-Discrimination Act violates students’ rights by allowing transgender girls to play on teams that match their gender identity.
District 49 filed the lawsuit after its school board passed a policy banning transgender students from playing on sports teams based on their gender identities, a decision made in the wake of Trump’s executive order.
Hare represented the Colorado High School Activities Association, which was one of the organizations sued by District 49. The association was dropped from the lawsuit after it agreed not to sanction conservative districts and schools for their policies prohibiting transgender students from playing on girls sports teams.
Courts leave it up to states — so far
Parker Baxter, director of the Center for Education Policy Analysis at the University of Colorado Denver, called Jeffco Public Schools’ argument regarding the state Anti-Discrimination Act “a little bit of a distraction.”
The primary fight, he said, is over whether the executive branch can enforce its interpretation of Title IX when the Department of Education did not undergo the normal rulemaking process, including taking public comment.
States, Baxter said, weren’t given a chance to weigh in on how the change might impact them and their existing laws.
Earlier this year, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld state laws, including one in Idaho, that prohibit transgender girls from playing on female sports teams. But the ruling did not address what happens in states with laws that allow transgender students to play on teams that match their gender identities.
“They basically left it to each state,” Lewis said of the ruling. “Colorado does not have to change its law unless it wants to, and it does not seem to be an inclination for that.”
Jeffco Public Schools argues in its lawsuit that a recent ruling by the Colorado Supreme Court backs up the district’s position. Earlier this year, the court found that Children’s Hospital Colorado must follow the state’s Anti-Discrimination Act and provide gender-affirming care to transgender patients despite the federal government’s threat to pull funding.
The school district’s attorneys said the Education Department’s attempt to force Jeffco to violate state law has “undermined community trust.”
“Jeffco students and staff are uncertain as to what rules will apply to their access to facilities and athletics when school resumes this fall and whether they will have sufficient funding to support their education programs and activities,” the attorneys wrote.
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