The U.S. Department of Education headquarters in Washington, D.C. (Westy72 / Getty Images)
By Jack Davis March 14, 2026 at 3:45pm
A Colorado school district kicked female athletes aside 61 times to give boys a chance to compete against girls, according to the U.S. Department of Education.
The Education Department said Jefferson County Public Schools in Colorado violated Title IX rules “by permitting male students to access female bathrooms, locker rooms, and overnight accommodations, and to compete in female sports,” according to a news release.
Athletic rosters from the school showed that males are filling up to 61 roster spots on female sports teams, according to the department’s Office of Civil Rights.
By using the standard of “gender identity” as its guide, the district “discriminates against females by denying them safety, dignity, and equal access to educational programs and activities,” the release said.
“Today’s findings reveal sweeping Title IX violations by Jefferson County Public Schools — denying fairness and equality to female students by allowing males into their private facilities, overnight accommodations, and athletics. The District’s decision to prioritize ‘gender identity’ over ensuring equal access for its female students is unconscionable,” Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Kimberly Richey said.
“The District must act now to end these violations and protect future generations of girls from sex discrimination. The Trump Administration will not relent until female athletes’ safety, opportunities, and equal protection under the law are fully restored,” she added.
The district was given 10 days to agree with the Trump administration’s terms in a Resolution Agreement, which will include scrapping policies men used to access “female intimate facilities,” spend the night with girls, and compete in female sports.
The district is also required to publicly say it will comply with Title IX by using biology to decide who is male or female, and by following federal law regardless of how the state chooses to redefine biology.
Parent Lindsay Datko backed the action, according to CBS News.
“This is real children who are developing who need these guidelines and boundaries so that everybody feels comfortable attending Jeffco schools,” she said.
District leaders “call their policy equal opportunity, and really it sidelines anybody who is not transgender,” Datko said.
She said parents blew the whistle after one overnight incident.
“Parents really rose up and sent us example after example,” Datko said. “Students were coming home and saying that they were slipping in their sleeping bags to avoid changing in front of their female high school leader, who was of the opposite sex.”
While not stating it would refuse to comply, the school district issued a statement saying the Department of Education’s “conclusion is erroneous, and the Resolution Agreement proposed by OCR would place Jeffco in direct conflict with Colorado law.”
The district came under federal scrutiny in June, according to a 2025 news release.
At that time, the probe was centered around a district policy in which students could be “assigned to share overnight accommodations with other students that share a student’s ‘gender identity.’”
The policy came to light after “parents of an 11-year-old girl in the district discovered their daughter would have had to share a bed with a male student on an overnight school trip without being notified by the school.”
At the time, the Education Department said parents were told students would be separated by gender, without the parents being told its definitions allowed boys to claim they were girls.
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