EDITORS' CORNER
Biden admin told the college that not using students’ ‘preferred’ pronouns could constitute harassment
The Department of Education rescinded a Biden-era agreement with a California community college on Monday that put pressure on its faculty to use students’ “preferred pronouns.”
“Today, the Trump Administration is removing the unnecessary and unlawful burdens that prior Administrations imposed on schools in its relentless pursuit of a radical transgender agenda,” Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Kimberly Richey stated in a news release.
Along with Taft College, the department also threw out similar agreements with five public school districts across the country. All of them relate to transgender students and the Biden administration’s “distorted” interpretation of discrimination under Title IX, according to the department.
The 2023 agreement with Taft College had required it to tell faculty that “refusal to use a person’s preferred name and pronouns — or repeatedly misusing them — could constitute harassment,” NBC News affiliate KGET reports.
The department, under the Biden administration, created the agreement after a student complained about being “misgender[ed]” and “misnam[ed].”
The college also agreed to pay the student up to $5,000 for counseling, change its Title IX policies, and provide faculty training on the matter, according to the report:
Allegations of harassment included a professor allegedly saying in front of her whole class the professor didn’t consider her “feminine enough” based on her “physical appearance,” and an administrator of the student’s college program knowingly excluding her when calling other female students in class “ladies.”
The student also said faculty and staff members called her by her previous male name and pronouns on a daily basis for over a year until she graduated, the complaint said.
While Taft College said there were three incidents of professors misgendering the student and apologizing afterwards, the student said there were several more incidents and that apologies weren’t enough when staff was misgendering her repeatedly, according to OCR’s investigation.
On Monday, the department described the Biden administration’s handling of the matter as “illegal, heavy-handed manipulation of Title IX,” adding that it will no longer be enforcing the agreement.
Similarly, the department also dissolved agreements with five school districts that involved requiring employees to use students’ “preferred pronouns” and allowing boys to use girls’ bathrooms if they claimed to identify as female, the Associated Press reports:
Under a settlement the Delaware Valley School District [in Pennsylvania] reached with the Obama administration, the district was required to permit students to use bathrooms that aligned with their gender identity.
In February, the Trump administration sent the district a letter saying it was rescinding the settlement. The administration went further, requiring the district to roll back antidiscrimination protections for transgender students.
The school board voted in late March to change its transgender student policies to abide by the Trump administration’s demands.
However, the changes prompted criticism from the National Women’s Law Center. The progressive group criticized the Trump administration as “unimaginably cruel” in a statement Monday.
“Title IX exists to ensure that students are protected from discrimination and treated with dignity so that they can learn and thrive in our schools,” Shiwali Patel, senior director of education justice, stated, adding, “Parents, teachers and students need the Department to focus on addressing real harms on campuses instead of rolling back policies that keep all students safe.”
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