WASHINGTON - The U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights (OCR) has issued a memo to public schools and teachers explaining that refusal to refer to so-called transgender students by their preferred pronoun or name could be grounds for an investigation.
The OCR recently issued an internal memo "to explain the effects of developments on the enforcement of Title IX" regarding complaints involving so-called transgender students.
The memo, written by acting assistant secretary for civil rights Candice Jackson, lists several reasons why OCR investigators would assert "subject matter jurisdiction over and open [a case] for investigation." For example, a school's failure to quickly resolve a so-called transgender student's complaint of sex discrimination or treating a student different because of his or her failure to conform to "stereotyped notions of masculinity or femininity."
