The U.S. Department of Education has opened an investigation into Arlington Public Schools’ policies around transgender students.
The federal department announced this week that it is investigating five Northern Virginia school districts, including APS, following a complaint from America First Legal.
The complaint targeted an APS policy allowing students to access bathrooms and locker rooms corresponding with their gender identity. Debate on this policy, adopted in 2019, has reignited in recent weeks following the arrest of a sex offender who was reportedly allowed into multiple girls’ locker rooms after identifying as a woman.
The complaint alleges that APS and four other school districts are in violation of Title IX as well as a recent executive order from President Donald Trump entitled “Ending Radical Indoctrination in K-12 Schooling.”
The Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) is also investigating similar policies at Alexandria City Public Schools, Fairfax County Public Schools, Loudoun County Public Schools and Prince William County Public Schools.
“Please note that opening an investigation does not mean that OCR has made a final
determination with regard to the merits,” the Department of Education said in a Wednesday letter announcing the investigation. “During the investigation, OCR is neutral; OCR will collect and analyze the evidence it needs in order to make a decision about the complaint.”
The letter does not mention Trump’s executive order. It instead focuses on allegations that the school districts’ policies “provide greater rights to students whose ‘gender identity’ does not match their biological sex than it does to students whose ‘gender identity’ matches their biological sex.”
APS spokesperson Frank Bellavia disputed this interpretation of the school system’s policy.
“We firmly stand behind our non-discrimination policies and pride ourselves on providing safe, welcoming schools for all students,” he told ARLnow. “We follow all federal laws with respect to Title IX.”
Reed Rubinstein, senior vice president of America First Legal, called the investigation a victory for efforts to stop public schools from promoting “gender ideology.”
“The leftists who run northern Virginia’s schools act as if they are above the law, with the power to indoctrinate children to view their parents and their biological reality as enemies to be blamed in violation of Title IX and lawful Presidential Orders,” he said in a press release today (Friday). “However, Federal civil rights laws apply even in northern Virginia, and it seems a reckoning is coming.”
In Fiscal Year 2025, APS received about $18.7 million from the federal government.
