Education Department Opens Title IX Investigations Into Maryland State Agency and Three School Districts

The U.S. Department of Education said Tuesday that its Office for Civil Rights has opened Title IX investigations into the Maryland State Department of Education and three of the state’s largest school systems over policies the department says may allow students to join girls’ sports teams and use sex-separated facilities based on gender identity.

The June 23 announcement names the state agency, Montgomery County Public Schools, Prince George’s County Public Schools and Frederick County Public Schools. The department said its civil rights office will examine whether those entities violated Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 through policies that, in the department’s wording, permit “boys to participate on girls’ athletic teams and access girls’ intimate facilities,” including girls-only locker rooms, restrooms and overnight accommodations. The department tied the investigations to a Feb. 11 complaint filed by the Defense of Freedom Institute for Policy Studies, a conservative policy and legal nonprofit.

According to the complaint and the department’s summary of it, the group alleges that statewide guidance from the Maryland education department and district policies require schools to let students compete on girls’ teams and use girls-only spaces based on gender identity, and that girls who objected were told to use alternate facilities. The complaint also alleged schools told staff to withhold information from parents when students request changes to names or pronouns at school. That parental-notification issue was raised in the complaint as an alleged violation of FERPA, the federal student privacy law, and is not an OCR finding.

An OCR investigation is the start of a formal civil rights review, not a determination that any school system broke the law. Title IX bars sex discrimination in federally funded education programs, stating that no person in the United States may, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, denied the benefits of, or subjected to discrimination under those programs. OCR typically investigates complaints, seeks voluntary resolution if it finds problems and, in more serious cases, can pursue enforcement steps. The Education Department said Title IX violations can result in termination of federal funding.

“The practice of allowing students to access sex-separated programs and facilities based solely on self-asserted ‘gender identity’ is deeply troubling and raises significant legal concerns,” Kimberly Richey, the Education Department’s assistant secretary for civil rights, said in the department’s release. “Fifty-four years after Title IX was signed into law, the Trump Administration remains steadfast to enforce its promise to protect women and girls. We will fully investigate these allegations and take appropriate action to ensure compliance with federal law.”

The department announced the Maryland investigations on the 54th anniversary of Title IX, which was signed into law on June 23, 1972. The move also fits into a broader Trump administration enforcement push on Title IX issues involving school athletics and sex-separated spaces. In April 2025, the Education Department and Justice Department announced a Title IX Special Investigations Team to handle what they described as a rise in such complaints.

As of a June 23 review, no public statements responding to the announcement were posted on the official news pages of the Maryland State Department of Education, Montgomery County Public Schools, Prince George’s County Public Schools or Frederick County Public Schools.