Civil Rights ClassroomCivil Rights Expertise and Insight
Category: Office for Civil Rights
On April 17, 2026, the U.S. Department of Education issued a press release finding four Kansas school districts violated federal education laws based on their policies relating to transgender students. This investigation is the latest in a series of investigations and press releases signaling a shift in how the Office for Civil Rights investigates, announces findings and seeks compliance.
On February 14, 2025, the Office for Civil Rights issued a Dear Colleague Letter (DCL) regarding the nondiscrimination obligations of schools receiving federal financial assistance from the U.S. Department of Education (ED)—and set a deadline of February 28, 2025 for schools to comply with OCR’s new interpretation of schools’ obligations under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The DCL came in the wake of the President’s January 20 and 21, 2025 Executive Orders, which declared “diversity, equity, and inclusion” initiatives to be a form of racial discrimination, and which called out higher education institutions for using “race and sex-based preferences under the guise of” DEI. While a federal district court in Maryland recently paused three challenged provisions of the executive orders, the pause does not directly implicate the DCL. Accordingly, schools should take note of OCR’s interpretation as well as other legal authority impacting the implementation of DEI practices.
Artificial intelligence-enabled tools can do all sorts of helpful tasks. But AI is trained on existing (human-generated) data and language and can therefore include biases. And its methods rely on probability and can therefore include mistakes. The Department of Education’s Office of Ed Tech has useful explanations and resources in this blog post. Given these risks and the increasing use of AI in education, the Office for Civil Rights issued guidance on Avoiding the Discriminatory Use of Artificial Intelligence. The guidance includes multiple scenarios involving the use of AI that OCR advises would likely cause it to open an investigation related to potential discrimination based on sex, race, national origin, disability, or a combination of bases.
The Texas Attorney General’s Office has had a lot on its plate lately, including the suspension and impeachment of AG Ken Paxton. But it has taken on a new challenge this week with a broad lawsuit seeking to remove Title IX protections recognized by both the Trump and Biden administrations for LGBTQIA students.
Other lawsuits have challenged the Biden administration’s attempt to extend Title IX to sex-segregated sports teams, intimate facilities for transgender students, and even use of student pronouns. But the Texas lawsuit challenges the Department of Education’s interpretation of Title IX to protect LGBTQIA students from any discrimination and harassment based on sexual orientation or gender identity.
If a Federal court agrees with the lawsuit, it would remove protections for LGBTQIA students that both the Trump and Biden administrations have recognized since at least August 2020. Back then, the Trump administration’s Office for Civil Rights publicly opened a case for investigation alleging different treatment of a student for being gay, which had not been the policy of OCR before. Keep reading for what you need to know about the Texas AG’s lawsuit and its potential impact on schools in Texas and beyond.
