WASHINGTON – Alliance Defending Freedom sent two complaints Wednesday to the Office for Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of Education, calling on the agency to investigate unlawful policies that harm female athletes and families.
In one of the civil rights complaints, ADF attorneys represent two female high school track-and-field athletes in Washington state. Soleil Hoefer, a senior at Prosser High School in Prosser, competes in multiple events, regularly lands on the podium, and has earned a college scholarship. Kora Lengerich is a freshman at Gonzaga Preparatory School in Spokane. Both of them compete in the 400-meter race.
Due to Washington state’s athletic policy that allows males to compete in women’s sports, Lengerich has already lost a podium spot to a male athlete, and Hoefer will likely have to compete against the same male athlete soon. The athlete—who previously competed in the high school boys’ category—now runs on the female track team at East Valley High School in Spokane and dominates the girls’ 400-meter race. The male athlete won last year’s state championship for the girls’ 400 meter and appears on track to do so again this year. The girls are urging the OCR to step in and prevent this violation of Title IX and protect the right of women and girls to compete fairly and safely by preserving a women’s-only sports category.
“It is fundamentally unfair that, despite all of their hard work and discipline, Soliel and Kora may never get to know the thrill of victory because Washington forces them to race against males with inherent biological advantages,” said ADF Legal Counsel Suzanne Beecher. “Consistent with President Trump’s executive order, ‘Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports,’ Soleil and Kora believe that Washington state officials are violating Title IX’s guarantee that students receive equal opportunity to enjoy educational benefits regardless of sex.”
In the other civil rights complaint, ADF joined the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty and Parents Defending Education in urging the Department of Education to investigate Milwaukee Public Schools’ secret “gender transition” policy. The policy allows school staff to create a “Gender Support Plan” and “Gender Communication Plan” for a minor student without notifying the parents and then to hide those plans from the student’s records to prevent the parents from accessing them.
As the complaint explains, this policy directly violates federal law—the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act and the Protection of Pupil Rights Amendment—which the Trump administration has prioritized enforcing. Accordingly, the complaint urges the Department of Education to open an investigation and obtain compliance with federal law, or, if necessary, rescind federal funding.
“Parents, not the government, have the right to direct the upbringing, education, and health care of their children,” said ADF Senior Counsel Kate Anderson, director of the ADF Center for Parental Rights. “Yet Milwaukee Public Schools is deliberately hiding vital information from moms and dads. In keeping with President Trump’s prioritization of parents’ rights, we are urging the administration to stop secretive policies that harm children.”
“Parents have the right and solemn responsibility to raise their own children. Federal law recognizes the parental role, yet school districts around the country have been flouting parental rights,” said WILL Deputy Counsel Luke Berg. “With a new administration that supports parents, we hope that these secret transition policies can be eliminated once and for all.”
“For too long, the previous Administration sacrificed the interests of parents, students, and female athletes on the altar of its progressive agenda,” said Sarah Parshall Perry, vice president and legal fellow at Parents Defending Education. “The prohibition against sex discrimination in any federally funded education program under Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 was never conceived to also prohibit ‘gender identity’ discrimination. But the prior Department of Education manipulated the plain text of the statute to render female scholastic athletes bystanders to their own equality as men across the country divested young women of scholarships, titles, and roster slots”
“In addition, federal privacy laws like FERPA and PPRA exist to ensure parents can protect the sensitive information of their minor children, not be shielded from it by school gender secrecy policies that obfuscate on how minors self-identify at school,” Perry added. “For more than 100 years, the Supreme Court has reinforced the primacy of parental authority in directing the upbringing and education of their minor children. The tide is changing, and we look forward to the Department’s investigations into Washington and Wisconsin schools for violations of unambiguous federal law.”
- Pronunciation guide: Soliel Hoefer (Soh-LAY’ HOE’-fur), Kora Lengerich (CORE’-uh LEHN’-gur-itch)
Alliance Defending Freedom is an alliance-building, non-profit legal organization committed to protecting religious freedom, free speech, parental rights, and the sanctity of life.
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