Chicago schools in standoff with feds over same-sex locker rooms
A united Chicago school board is fighting an order from the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights (OCR) to allow a transgender student full access to the high school girls’ locker room, a battle that could cost them millions in federal funding.
In 2014, the transgendered student filed a complaint with the OCR against Township School District 211, located in a northwestern suburb of Chicago, stating the district would not allow him use the girls’ locker room. The student, who has not been named, is biologically a boy but has been living as a girl for several years, the Chicago Tribune reported.
The OCR launched an investigation and concluded the district violated a recently enacted anti-discrimination mandate that states transgender students are included in Title IX protection against sexual discrimination. But without clear direction from the OCR on how to implement the rule,...