Have the Trump Administration Executive Orders and policy changes pertaining to sex-based rights resulted in changes within the Appleton Area School District? At this point, there seem to be no substantive changes.
President Donald Trump has recently signed an Executive Order focused on clarifying that the sexes are not interchangeable and sex-protective laws pertain to sex not to gender. He also signed an Executive Order specifically pertaining to female sports which states, “it is the policy of the United States to rescind all funds from educational programs that deprive women and girls of fair athletic opportunities, which results in the endangerment, humiliation, and silencing of women and girls and deprives them of privacy. It shall also be the policy of the United States to oppose male competitive participation in women’s sports more broadly, as a matter of safety, fairness, dignity, and truth.”
Additionally, the Trump Administration has updated Title IX regulations, rescinding the 2024 Title IX regulations implemented by the Biden Administration, and has issued clarification that the Title IX statute was passed with the intention of combating sex-based discrimination and the Department of Education “has the authority to issue rules to effectuate Title IX’s prohibition on sex discrimination consistent with the objectives of the statute.”
Are these changes in federal interpretation and enforcement resulting in substantive change to local schools? In the Appleton Area School District, the answer seems to be that little if anything has changed at this point. Males still have access to female bathrooms and changing rooms because the Wisconsin Department of Instruction is instructing schools to continue to follow the ruling in Whitaker v. Kenosha Unified School District which recognized gender identity as a protected class under federal law.
The Wisconsin Interscholastic Athletic Association “is reviewing its rules of eligibility with legal counsel to ensure compliance with recent executive orders. Our organization will follow the law and support our member schools with any necessary policy updates,” but it did not seem that any changes had been implemented at this point.
Additionally, AASD Superintendent Greg Hartjes has indicated that the District is “following the 2020 Title IX Rule and will be updating our District policy accordingly.” However, there is no timeline on when changes to the Nondiscrimination on the Basis of Sex in Education Programs or Activities policy will be brought before the Board of Education for a vote.
Finally, previously when the 2020 Title IX guidelines were in place, the District had been utilizing a document crafted by the National Education Association entitled “Legal Protections for Transgender Students” as guidance for how to appropriately respond to people who claim to have a gender different than their sex. This guidance seems to defer to an individual’s personal sense of gender, and back in 2022 when I asked how the District was balancing the guidance in this policy with the need to also provide sex-based protections I received no clear answer.
I asked Superintendent Hartjes twice if AASD was still utilizing NEA’s recommended guidance on Legal Protections for Transgender Students and did not receive an answer. I sent him one last follow-up on this matter, and if/when I receive a response I will update this post accordingly.
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