STATEMENT: Trump Administration Abandons Trans Students, Walking Away From Civil Rights Settlements

April 6. 2026

---

For Immediate Release
Apr 6, 2026

Media Contact
Nazirah Ahmad
[email protected]

Statement from Maha Ibrahim, Managing Attorney at Equal Rights Advocates, on the Trump administration’s termination of civil rights settlements protecting transgender students

SAN FRANCISCO, April 6, 2026—The Trump Administration’s decision to terminate civil rights settlements with transgender students is without legal precedent and without moral justification. By terminating these settlements that schools entered into in good faith to protect their students, the Trump administration is continuing with its calculated dismantling of federal education protections. 

“No matter how much this administration wishes we didn’t have rights, Title IX still prohibits sex discrimination in schools.”

These settlements were legally binding commitments made to ensure transgender students could access an education free from discrimination. Terminating them strips students of protections they were promised and signals to schools that the federal government will not hold anyone accountable for failing transgender students.

This is part of the administration’s systematic attack on the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights and the students it exists to serve. Thousands of discrimination complaints, including sexual assault and harassment claims, are sitting unresolved. Regional offices have been shuttered. Career civil rights attorneys have been fired. And now the administration is unwinding the settlements that students fought hard for and decades of enforcement work produced. 

“Schools can, and should, continue to protect their transgender students.”

No matter how much this administration wishes we didn’t have rights, Title IX still prohibits sex discrimination in schools. Federal courts have repeatedly affirmed that this protection extends to transgender students. Schools should not mistake the federal government’s abandonment of its enforcement obligations for permission to abandon their legal obligations as educators and institutions. Schools can, and should, continue to protect their transgender students. 

Equal Rights Advocates will continue to fight for every student’s right to an education free from discrimination, in court and in the halls of Congress, for as long as it takes.

To request an interview with ERA’s Maha Ibrahim or other experts, contact Blake Case at [email protected] or (601) 832-6079.