The US Department of Education has opened Title IX investigations into three Michigan school districts over allegations they allowed students to compete on sports teams and use locker rooms based on their gender identity.
The districts under investigation are Ann Arbor Public Schools, Monroe Public Schools and Chippewa Valley Schools. The Education Department announced the investigations on 18 June 2026 through its Office for Civil Rights.
According to the department, Ann Arbor allegedly allowed a transgender student to compete on a girls’ volleyball team, Monroe allegedly required its girls’ team to play against and share locker rooms with a team that included a transgender student, and Chippewa Valley allegedly permitted a female athlete to use a male-only locker room.
“The convoluted practice of allowing students to participate on sex-segregated athletic teams and make use of locker rooms based on ‘gender identity’ is not only known to be unsafe for students, but is a direct violation of federal law,” assistant secretary for civil rights Kimberly Richey said, according to Chalkbeat Detroit.
Title IX is a federal civil rights law that prohibits sex-based discrimination in schools and education programmes receiving federal funding. The Trump administration has increasingly used its interpretation of the law to target protections for transgender students, particularly in school sport and sex-segregated facilities.
A spokesperson for Chippewa Valley Schools said the district had not yet received the complaint and had learned of the investigation through media reports. The district said it would cooperate fully and remained “committed to providing a safe, supportive, and respectful learning environment for all students.”
Ann Arbor and Monroe districts did not immediately respond.
Trans athletes in school sports
The investigations are the latest flashpoint in the ongoing political battle over transgender students’ participation in school sports.
Criticism of trans athletes competing in girls’ school sports is not new, and California student athlete AB Hernandez has faced significant public attention.
Hernandez was previously targeted by Donald Trump in a Truth Social post following a track and field event in California.
She is permitted to compete against cisgender girls under California Interscholastic Federation guidelines.
Those guidelines mean that, if Hernandez qualifies to advance or earns a medal or podium position, she shares that achievement with the cisgender girl who finished behind her.
Her mother, Nereyda Hernandez, defended her daughter in August 2025, saying: “My daughter is not the problem … This has nothing to do with fairness in sport and everything to do with erasing transgender children.”
For LGBTQ+ advocates, the Michigan investigations are part of a broader federal push against trans inclusion in schools, while supporters of the administration’s approach argue it is necessary to enforce sex-based protections under Title IX.
