By Brad Brooks
(Reuters) – The U.S. Department of Education said on Tuesday it is investigating the Denver schools system for allegedly discriminating against women and girls by converting a female bathroom to all-gender.
The department said in a written statement that “as a result, East High School now has an exclusive restroom for male students and no restroom for female students on its second floor.”
The department also said it had received reports of all-gender restrooms in at least two other Denver schools.
A spokesperson for Denver Public Schools said the district had not yet been notified of the investigation and could not comment.
Scott Pribble, a spokesperson for the school district, told NBC affiliate 9News earlier this month that the change was aimed at allowing more kids to use the same bathroom for the sake of convenience.
The Department of Education’s Acting Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Craig Trainor said in the statement: “Let me be clear: it is a new day in America, and under President Trump, (the Education Department’s Office of Civil Rights) will not tolerate discrimination of any kind.”
In a Tuesday letter sent to Denver Public Schools Superintendent Alex Marrero, Trainor cited Title IX as the basis for the investigation, saying it prohibits “discrimination on the basis of sex in any education program or activity operated by a recipient of federal financial assistance from the Department.”
Gender and schools was a key issue of U.S. President Donald Trump’s successful campaign for a second term and has been a hot-button topic around the country.
Since Trump took office on Jan. 20, he has taken aim at transgender rights issues, saying that the U.S. would only recognize two sexes – male and female – and at transgender members of the military, which was the target of a lawsuit filed on Tuesday.
Earlier this month, a federal judge in Kentucky struck down an initiative of former President Joe Biden that barred discrimination by schools and colleges, ruling that Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 permits sex-specific bathrooms, dorms and other facilities.
(Reporting by Brad Brooks in Colorado; editing by Donna Bryson and Bill Berkrot)
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