DENVER — A Colorado school district facing federal penalties for Title IX violations denied having 61 biological males participating in girls’ competitive sports, saying the actual number is zero.
The Jefferson County Public Schools in Littleton swung back after the Department of Education renewed its threat to pull federal funding unless the district agrees to rescind its gender-identity policies and adopt biologically based definitions of “male” and “female.”
The district said it was “shocked and disappointed” by the warning, saying Title IX’s stance on gender identity remains unresolved and disputing as “erroneous” the department’s finding that male athletes “may occupy up to 61 roster positions on girls’ sports teams.”
“To be clear, the data did not show any male student occupied a girls’ athletics competition role,” said the district, known as Jeffco, in a Wednesday statement.
In March, the department’s Office for Civil Rights found the district in violation of Title IX over its policy allowing students access to girls’ private facilities, athletics and overnight accommodations based on gender identity.
Since then, however, the office said that the district has “taken no action to protect women and girls.”
“Today’s letter of impasse notifies the District that OCR will prepare for impending enforcement, which, following OCR’s regulatory procedures, could ultimately result in termination of the District’s federal education funding,” said the department in its Wednesday press release.
A day earlier, an attorney for the district sent a letter urging the office to issue a clarification on its findings regarding transgender athletes in girls’ sports, saying that they “rest on a fundamental misunderstanding of the data we provided.”
“Specifically, OCR incorrectly concluded, and has publicly claimed, that more than 60 male students are competing on Jeffco’s girls’ sports teams. This is not true,” Jacquelynn Rich Fredericks said in her Tuesday letter.
Ms. Fredericks called the clarification “crucial to Jeffco’s ability to meaningfully evaluate each of the three Action Items in the proposed Resolution Agreement.”
“Because OCR never reached out to us for clarification, yet publicly announced its inaccurate finding, the District was unable to meaningfully address the resulting concerns from, and potential risks to, our community,” she said.
She also suggested that the department’s disagreement lies with the state, not the school district.
The district adopted its gender-identity policy in 2013 to comply with the Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act, which has been interpreted by the Colorado Civil Rights Commission to “require school districts to accommodate students based on their gender identity,” she said.
“Respectfully, if what OCR wishes is to force a facial confrontation with the tenets of CADA that are woven into Jeffco’s policies, that fight is bigger than one district, and our 70,000 students deserve more than OCR walking away from our ongoing conversations,” said Ms. Fredericks.
The Supreme Court could decide as early as Friday on cases in Idaho and West Virginia challenging their state bans on biological males in female sports.
Ms. Fredericks said it would “behoove both OCR and the District to take into account the Court’s coming decision.”
The department’s March 13 proposed resolution agreement essentially calls on the district to defy state law.
One of the document’s four action items says that the district shall issue a public statement that will “specify that Title IX applies irrespective of state law or regulation and the policies of sports governing bodies.”
Jeffco urged the Office for Civil Rights to continue negotiations rather than begin enforcement actions.
“We are still within the 90 days that OCR’s own manual provides for good faith negotiations, do not believe that the parties are at an impasse, and invite OCR back to the negotiating table to address the very real issue now facing every single school in Colorado from Boulder to Pueblo and Lamar to Grand Junction,” said the district’s statement.
The district’s transgender-access issues extend beyond girls’ sports.
In 2024, Jeffco was sued by several parents challenging its gender-identity policy, including a couple whose 11-year-old daughter was assigned to a room with a biological male during a class trip to Philadelphia and Washington, D.C.
U.S. District Judge Regina Rodriguez, a Biden appointee, sided in August with the district, ruling that parental rights don’t extend to authority over district policies. The case is now before the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals.
