The U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) is investigating Denver Public Schools for converting a girl’s bathroom into an all-gender facility at East High School, the district’s largest high school.
According to a letter from OCR, as a result of the change, East High School now has an exclusive restroom for male students and no restroom for female students on its second floor, which is a Title IX violation. Under Title IX of the Education Amendment of 1972, a recipient of federal funds, like a public school, “may provide separate toilet, locker room, and shower facilities on the basis of sex, but such facilities provided for students of one sex shall be comparable to such facilities provided for students of the other sex.”
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“The alarming report that the Denver Public Schools District denied female students a restroom comparable with their male counterparts appears to directly violate the civil rights of the District’s female students,” said Acting Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Craig Trainor. “Let me be clear: it is a new day in America, and under President Trump, OCR will not tolerate discrimination of any kind. I have directed OCR’s Denver regional office to investigate this matter fully.”
Denver Public Schools Official: Students Requested Change
The district sent out newsletters and information in the weeks leading up to the bathroom remodel, 9News reports. Scott Pribble, Denver Public Schools director of external communication, said the change was proposed after students asked administrators for more bathroom options as the school is very large.
“This is just something that helps provide convenience for everybody,” said Pribble. “It was becoming a problem for kids that were trying to go to the bathroom during passing period. They were running out of time, being late to the next class because the one or two single stall bathrooms that they had to accommodate this just wasn’t enough for the need that was out there.”
Pribble said the school chose to convert a girl’s bathroom over a boy’s bathroom due to logistics.
“It’s easier to convert a girl’s restroom to a gender-neutral restroom simply because of the type of hardware that is in place already in that room,” he said. “The girl’s restroom has toilets that can be accessed by everybody whereas a boys has different type of toilets that may be specific to specific genders and kind of changes the gender-neutral piece of it.”
East High School isn’t the first in the district to establish an all-gender bathroom. CEC Early College has a multi-stall gender-neutral bathroom and the Denver School of the Arts also put in a multi-stall gender-neutral bathroom over the summer. Both changes were reportedly made at the request of students.
