The Trump administration has terminated civil rights settlements that previous administrations reached with five school districts and a college to protect transgender students — a move unprecedented in U.S. history. The Delaware Valley School District, which reached its original settlement with the Obama administration in 2015, received notice of the termination in February and has since voted to roll back its anti-discrimination protections for transgender students. Shiwali Patel, senior director of education justice at the National Women’s Law Center, said, “There is absolutely no basis for what the Department of Education is doing, and it is unimaginably cruel.” Meanwhile, in Iowa, the state can now restrict teachers from discussing LGBTQ+ topics with students in kindergarten through sixth grade and can ban certain books in school libraries and classrooms, after the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals vacated a lower court’s temporary block on a 2023 state law.

The Trump administration has terminated civil rights settlements that previous administrations reached with five school districts and a college to protect transgender students — a move unprecedented in U.S. history…

Shiwali Patel, senior director of education justice at the National Women’s Law Center, said, “There is absolutely no basis for what the Department of Education is doing, and it is unimaginably cruel.”