The U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights will open an investigation into Denver Public Schools for “discriminating against its female students” by creating an all-gender bathroom at East High School, the federal agency announced Tuesday.
East, the city’s largest high school, converted a girls restroom into a bathroom for all genders over the winter break. As a result, the school has a bathroom for boys on the second floor but not for girls, according to a news release from the Education Department.
“The alarming report that the Denver Public Schools District denied female students a restroom comparable with their male counterparts appears to directly violate the civil rights of the district’s female students,” Craig Trainor, President Donald Trump’s acting assistant secretary for civil rights, said in a statement.
“Let me be clear: It is a new day in America, and under President Trump, OCR will not tolerate discrimination of any kind. I have directed OCR’s Denver regional office to investigate this matter fully.”
DPS defended the all-gender restroom at East, noting that it was added “as the result of a student-led process that reflects our commitment to inclusivity and student voice, leadership, and empowerment, providing a welcoming space for all.”
“This restroom serves all students, including those who may feel uncomfortable in gender-specific facilities and aligns with our values of supporting every student,” district spokesman Scott Pribble said in a statement.
The DPS Board of Education voted in 2020 to require every school in the district to provide at least one all-gender bathroom in their buildings.
It appears the investigation into DPS will be broader than just looking at the newly renovated bathroom at East; Trainor wrote in a letter to Superintendent Alex Marrero that the Office for Civil Rights is also aware that DPS has installed all-gender restrooms in two other schools, the Denver School of the Arts and CEC Early College.
“OCR’s directed 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 and its implementing regulations,” Trainor wrote.
But Brett Sokolow, the president of the Association of Title IX Administrators, said these questions have not yet been tested.
“They are arguing that an all-gender restroom isn’t comparable to a single-gender restroom,” Sokolow said. “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.”
Under Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, organizations that receive federal funds may provide separate toilet and locker rooms based on sex, but such facilities for one sex must be comparable to facilities provided for students of the other sex.
The investigation was announced a day after the Trump administration announced a freeze on federal spending as part of an effort to review programs “supporting activities consistent with the President’s policies and requirements.” The budget memo attacked what it called “transgenderism” as a “waste of taxpayer dollars.”
DPS, the state’s largest district, expects to receive $96 million in federal grant funding during the 2024-25 academic year. If that money ends, then it will affect the district’s Head Start program as well as federal meal reimbursements DPS receives for students living in poverty as soon as next academic year, Pribble said.
East High converted the bathroom during winter break after students asked school leaders for another all-gender restroom. Students approached administrators after noticing the school’s single-stall all-gender bathrooms were in high demand and that there wasn’t enough time for everyone to use them between classes, he said.
The school decided to convert the girls bathroom “to meet student needs in the most cost-effective way possible,” Pribble said.
It would have been more expensive to create a third all-gender multi-stall restroom and the school didn’t have to remove urinals from the boys bathroom, he said.
The stalls in the converted restroom offer more privacy than a normal stall, with 12-foot-tall walls that almost reach the ceiling and metal blocks that prevent people from seeing through the space where the wall and door meet, he said.
School officials notified parents about the new bathroom during winter break and staff members stood outside the facility between classes once the semester resumed this month so that students would know about the changes before entering, Pribble said.
“The faculty of East High School has developed a plan to supervise and monitor this lavatory, just as they do with all others,” he said.
A parent criticized the new bathroom during a Jan. 9 meeting of the Denver school board.
“What was once a girls restroom is now an all-gender restroom, leaving the girls with only two restrooms in a three-story building while the boys have three,” parent Lori Ramos said during the meeting, adding, “Administration has sacrificed the comfort of these young females for this dubious change by now limiting their options.”
Trainor, the acting assistant education secretary, cited local news coverage that followed that board meeting in his letter to Marrero — something that drew a sharp retort from DPS.
“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 rather than in response to a filed complaint requesting their involvement,” Pribble noted in the district’s statement.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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