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By Ann Schimke, Chalkbeat
Citing President Trump’s threat to cut off federal education funding for school districts that provide protections for LGBTQ people, school board members in the Montezuma-Cortez district in southwestern Colorado are poised to remove sexual orientation and gender identity from the district’s nondiscrimination policy.
“Our district uses federal grant monies and Trump has indicated those grants are at risk if any district continues to support certain previously protected classes like sexual orientation, gender expression, or gender identity,” Mike Lynch, a school board member and the policy committee chair, said at a board meeting late last month.
The proposed policy changes in Montezuma-Cortez represent just one example of how some Colorado school districts are rushing to comply — or over-comply — with federal ultimatums based on questionable legal foundations. Many legal experts say the Trump administration cannot, on its own, exclude transgender people from federal anti-discrimination law and that Colorado law, which includes protections for LGBTQ people, supersedes school district policy anyway.
But efforts to remove protections at the local level send harmful messages about who is valued and who isn’t, they say.
“I think it does damage to queer students because it signals that this school district … doesn’t believe that these students are worthy of protection,” Scott Skinner-Thompson, associate professor of law at the University of Colorado Boulder.
Montezuma-Cortez, a conservative-leaning district with about 2,400 students, has taken other steps to curtail LGBTQ symbols and school activities in recent years. The school board is scheduled to take a final vote on the proposed nondiscrimination policy on June 24.
MB McAfee, a retired social worker and district resident, said she doesn’t know of any case where federal funds were withheld by the Trump administration, but worries about that possibility, particularly when it comes to money for students with disabilities.
But she’s also angry about the proposed policy changes, calling them “another step toward exclusion.”
“If we do that,” she asked, “then what’s going to be next?”.
School districts react to funding threats
Trump has targeted transgender rights since his first day in office. In January and February, he issued several executive orders on the topic, including one that describes sex as determined at conception and unchangeable and another that threatens to withhold federal funds from schools that allow transgender girls to play girls sports.
The Trump administration has moved to strip federal funding from Maine because that state allows transgender girls to compete on girls’ teams. A judge blocked the federal government from withholding school lunch money while the case continues.
So far, no school district has lost money because of policies protecting transgender students. But Lynch emphasized that risk when he explained the proposed policy revision to the school board in May.
Asked by Chalkbeat what executive order or federal guidance required the removal of “sexual orientation” from the policy, Lynch later said by email that he’d mistakenly cited the term when he spoke to the board about federal dollars being in jeopardy.
For now though, “sexual orientation” isn’t being restored to the policy, he said.
Montezuma-Cortez isn’t alone in making changes spurred by the Trump administration. Officials from several Colorado districts, including Woodland Park and District 49 near Colorado Springs, have cited Trump’s executive orders in pushing policy changes or other efforts aimed at revoking protections for transgender students.
In May, District 49 sued the state and the Colorado High School Activities Association arguing that Colorado law and the association’s policy violate students’ constitutional rights by allowing transgender youth to play on school sports teams that match their gender identity.
Montezuma-Cortez school board members had little to say about the implications of the proposed nondiscrimination policy changes.
Asked about the legal or practical implications, Lynch said he’s not an attorney and doesn’t know. School board President Sheri Noyes did not respond to Chalkbeat’s request for comment. Vice President Ed Rice declined to respond to specific questions from Chalkbeat, saying by email that the policy’s opening sentence “answers everything.”
As proposed, that sentence says, “The Board is committed to providing a learning and work environment where all members of the school community are treated with dignity and respect.” The current version of the policy says “safe learning and work environment” but the revision takes out the word “safe.”
Lynch said the district’s policy committee wrote the revised policy, but he declined to reveal who else is on the committee, except to say it includes two district staff members, two community members, and one teacher.
The proposed policy change also adopts language directly from a February Dear Colleague letter in which the U.S. Department of Education said many common practices under the umbrella of diversity, equity, and inclusion are actually discriminatory. Federal judges have temporarily blocked implementation of the guidance laid out in the letter.
The new district policy bars the consideration of race in all aspects of student, academic, and campus life, including scholarships. However, Lynch said that programs for Indigenous students are not subject to the ban on race-based programs.
A fraught history on LGBTQ protections
In recent years, the Montezuma-Cortez district has taken aim at a variety of LGBTQ-friendly policies and practices.
In February 2021, school board member Lance McDaniel was recalled after an uproar over his weekly donation of pizza to a middle school “Rainbow Club,” a lunchtime gathering for LGBTQ students and allies. Prior to the community vote, social media blew up with accusations that McDaniel was a “groomer” and “pedophile,” according to a story from Rocky Mountain PBS.
A month before McDaniel was recalled, LGBTQ pride flags were removed from the middle school classroom of a staff member who sponsored the Rainbow Club. The building principal said such “inflammatory icons” couldn’t be displayed in common spaces.
By the fall of 2021, the school board had passed a policy restricting clubs not officially sponsored by the school, including the Rainbow Club, from meeting during lunchtime — effectively ending the group’s run.
This April, four district officials were among more than 60 education officials from across the state to sign onto a letter demanding that the Colorado High School Activities Association adopt rules “to ensure that boys are not permitted to compete as girls in girls’ sports.” The Montezuma-Cortez signers were Lynch, Noyes, Superintendent Tom Burris, and Assistant Superintendent Eddie Ramirez.
McDaniel said he’s not surprised by the board’s move to change the nondiscrimination policy given its recent history
As for the rationale that the district could lose federal funding if it doesn’t change its policies, he said, “I think it’s a bunch of crap.”
“You can’t really say anything definitive about what Trump or his administration will do,” he said. “I see a lot of people in a lot of organizations bending their knee to acquiesce to his desires.”
Lance knows a portion of the community supports the board’s decisions, but said there’s growing opposition, both because of issues like the nondiscrimination policy and a spate of controversial teacher reassignments and departures, among other things.
Why executive orders aren’t the final word
Legal experts say Trump’s pledge to pull federal funding from districts that don’t comply with his executive orders or other policy demands is overblown.
“They’re doing a lot of saber rattling,” but the administration’s power to cut funding to school districts is limited, said Skinner-Thompson, of University of Colorado Boulder.
“Funding termination is a remedy of last resort,” he said. “To bring an enforcement action, the federal authorities are supposed to engage in negotiations, conciliation, and then, and only then, terminate funding.”
In addition, Skinner-Thompson said the administration’s interpretation of Title IX — its legal rationale for some executive orders threatening to withhold education funding — is flawed.
Title IX is a 1972 civil rights law that banned discrimination on the basis of sex in education programs and activities. The law does not define sex and the courts generally have interpreted it to also ban discrimination based on sex stereotypes and extended protections to LGBTQ people.
“Title IX prohibits sex discrimination, and several federal courts … have concluded that the federal statutory prohibitions on sex discrimination include protections for sexual minorities.” he said.
He acknowledged some disagreement in the courts about transgender rights, but said it will ultimately be judges, not the president, who decide how to interpret the law.
“People have been reacting to the executive orders like it’s the final word, but that’s not the case,” he said.
Ann Schimke is a senior reporter at Chalkbeat, covering early childhood issues and early literacy. Contact Ann at [email protected].
