A federal investigation into an upstate school district is being demanded by Representative Elise Stefanik due to its “direct violation” of President Trump’s executive order prohibiting trans athletes from participating in girls’ sports.
In a resolution titled “Affirming Our Support for Every Student,” the Saratoga Springs City Board of Education, located in the district of the New York GOP congresswoman, affirmed on March 27 that transgender students have the “right to use facilities and partake in activities and sports consistent with their gender identity.”
In response to the action, Stefanik vehemently wrote US Secretary of Education Linda McMahon on Monday, pleading for her to look into the district.
According to Stefanik, the board’s action is against Title IX of the federal education law, which forbids sex-based discrimination in programs and institutions that receive federal support, as well as Trump’s executive order 4201, “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports.”
If the US Education Department determines that the school district is breaking both Trump’s directive and federal law, it may lose some of its $3 million in government money.
In her letter to McMahon, Stefanik stated, “It is blatantly against Title IX and President Trump’s executive order to allow biological males into girls’ sports and locker rooms.”
“Our daughters should not be forced to compete against biological men in competitive sports or share a locker room with biological men,” according to the congresswoman.
In order to hold the Saratoga board of education accountable and to “protect our young women and girls in sports,” she demanded that McMahon have the Office of Civil Rights at the Education Department launch a formal investigation into the transgender policy, calling it a “blatant violation” of both federal law and Trump’s order.
“I join President Trump in his commitment to protect our nation’s girls and daughters,” Stefanik stated. “This Far Left woke ideology has no place in our communities.”
Stefanik, who is considering a bid for governor, has also criticized the country’s top universities, including Harvard and Columbia, for not doing more to combat hate speech and antisemitism on college campuses.
In an effort to ascertain if the Ivy League university complied with federal law while receiving US financing, she co-signed a letter to Harvard President Alan Garber on Thursday, requesting a vast collection of papers.
Stefanik graduated from Harvard herself.
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Stefanik and her alma institution have previously had disagreements.
Stefanik questioned the leaders of Harvard, Columbia, and the University of Pennsylvania about their antisemitism policies on campus during a hearing of the House Education and Workforce Committee in December 2023.
A few weeks later, Claudine Gay, the president of Harvard at the time, resigned due to a plagiarism issue.
Schools that receive federal funds are prohibited from discriminating under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
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Stefanik and James Comer (R-Kentucky), the chairman of the House Oversight Committee, pointed out that Harvard rejected demands on April 14 that included ending diversity, equity, and inclusion programs, increasing the use of merit-based hiring, reforming “programs with egregious records of antisemitism and other bias,” and strengthening the screening of international applicants for admissions in order to “prevent admitting students hostile to the American values,” including those who are “supportive of terrorism or antisemitism.”
In addition to publicly considering removing Harvard’s tax-exempt status, the Trump administration declared that $2.2 billion in multi-year grants to the Ivy League school and $60 million in multi-year contracts will be frozen.
