This article originally appeared here, at fairfaxschoolsmonitor.com

On July 25, the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) concluded a five-month investigation into the transgender policies of Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS) and four other Northern Virginia school districts (Alexandria, Arlington, Loudoun and Prince William).  It announced that all five jurisdictions are violating Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 by failing to protect the safety and privacy rights of girls in intimate spaces, including locker rooms and restrooms.

OCR stated that the school districts would face “imminent enforcement action” unless they agreed within ten days — i.e., today — to (i) rescind their policies allowing students to access intimate spaces on the basis of “gender identity” rather than biological sex, (ii) explain to their constituents that Title IX ensures equal opportunity for women in all education activities, including athletic programs, and (iii) adopt biology-based definitions of male and female in all policies and practices relating to Title IX.

In announcing the decision, OCR’s Acting Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights stated that the time had come to end Northern Virginia’s experiment with “radical gender ideology and unlawful discrimination” in schools.  He further stated that “the Trump Administration will not sacrifice the safety, dignity, and innocence of America’s young women and girls at the altar of anti-scientific illiberalism.”

There was never a doubt about what the investigation’s result would be regarding FCPS, for the school system has been openly, and seemingly proudly, thumbing its nose at federal and Virginia anti-discrimination law for quite some time.  See “Fairfax School Board Defies Virginia Transgender Policy,” Aug. 16, 2023.  Defying basic biology and millennia of human understanding, FCPS defines gender as an artificial concept, i.e., as a “socially constructed system of classification.”  Given this view, it’s understandable that FCPS has had no problem in permitting members of one “artificial gender” to freely view the naked bodies of the other in intimate spaces.  Thus, under FCPS policy, students who assert transgender status are permitted to use whatever locker rooms and restrooms they want.  It is impermissible for the only accommodation to be a private area or single-use facility.  If a biological male wants to undress and shower in a girls’ locker room, he has an absolute right to do so, and if some or all the girls want privacy, the burden is on them to find alternative accommodations.  If a gym class includes twenty girls and one biological boy, the boy’s desires prevail, and the twenty girls must use restroom stalls, private areas elsewhere in the school, or alternative shower/changing times.  In other ways as well, FCPS’s transgender policies are as extreme as any in the country.  See “Trans Rules Fairfax Schools,” Sept. 7, 2022.

FCPS’s leadership says this scheme of things provides “a safe, supporting, welcoming, and inclusive school environment for all students.”  But of course it doesn’t.  When a girl holds her urine all day due to fear and embarrassment of encountering boys in her restroom, the environment is not safe, supporting, welcoming and inclusive for her.  The FCPS notion of “inclusiveness” focuses solely on the desires of a tiny minority at the expense of everyone else’s safety, dignity and innocence.

Policy makers almost everywhere are realizing that biology, common sense and basic fairness have been upended by the transgender bullies.  Legislatures, universities, the NCAA, Olympic organizations and others are rescinding policies that did not protect the rights of women and girls.

But not FCPS.  Administrators and School Board members have been digging in their heels, boldly declaring their solidarity and intent to resist.

So, what’s next?  The Department of Justice will almost certainly pursue enforcement action.  Federal funding might be cut off, severely impacting important education needs.  FCPS will hire expensive law firms.  Lower courts might or might not grant relief to the school system.  Appeals will be taken from interim and final court rulings.  The process can easily take two years or more.  Several million dollars may be spent.  The process will be a distraction from the education-oriented issues FCPS should be focusing on.

Prudent leaders would take a step back and reevaluate the situation before it takes on a life of its own.  Unfortunately, ultra-woke ideology seems more important to FCPS’s leadership than common sense and fiscal responsibility.