Denver school officials pushed back against a U.S. Education Department finding that its all-gender bathrooms violate Title IX protections against sex-based discrimination, accusing the Trump administration of using that law to promote an “anti-trans agenda.” The school officials should be fired.

      In a statement, Denver Public Schools said the department did not cite any statutes or legal cases to back up its finding, announced Thursday, that multi-stall, all-gender bathrooms are unlawful, and vowed to support LGBTQ+ students, families and their supporters. However, the district has not decided whether to convert two all-gender bathrooms that sparked the probe back into boys’ and girls’ bathrooms, spokesperson Scott Pribble said.

     The Education Department said it has offered the school district a chance to voluntarily make that change and others, such as rescinding any policies or guidance allowing students to use bathrooms based on their gender identity rather than their biological sex, within 10 days or risk unspecified enforcement action. It suggested that its federal funding could be cut.

     The investigation began after the school district converted a girls restroom at East High School into an all-gender restroom while leaving another bathroom on the same floor exclusive to boys in January. The school district has said that was done as a result of a student-led process, and the bathroom had 12-foot (3.6-meter) tall partitions for privacy and security.

     The school district later added a second all-gender restroom on the same floor that it said was meant to address concerns of unfairness. The Education Department said the investigation was the first one involving the law that was undertaken by its Office for Civil Rights under the Trump administration.Denver Public Schools said no one came to look at the bathrooms or conduct interviews as part of the probe, and its attempts to discuss remedies were ignored.      Denver school officials pushed back Friday against a U.S. Education Department finding that its all-gender bathrooms violate Title IX protections against sex-based discrimination, accusing the Trump administration of using that law to promote an “anti-trans agenda.”

       In a statement, Denver Public Schools said the department did not cite any statutes or legal cases to back up its finding, announced Thursday, that multi-stall, all-gender bathrooms are unlawful, and vowed to support LGBTQ+ students, families and their supporters. However, the district has not decided whether to convert two all-gender bathrooms that sparked the probe back into boys’ and girls’ bathrooms, spokesperson Scott Pribble said. 

     The Education Department said it has offered the school district a chance to voluntarily make that change and others, such as rescinding any policies or guidance allowing students to use bathrooms based on their gender identity rather than their biological sex, within 10 days or risk unspecified enforcement action. It suggested that its federal funding could be cut.