Justice Department sues California for violating the rights of female athletes

July 9, 2025

By KAREN VELIE

The Justice Department filed a lawsuit today against California to force compliance of Title IX and to protect female student athletes from unfair competition and reckless endangerment from male participation on female high-school sports teams.

The complaint accuses the California Department of Education and the California Interscholastic Federation of engaging in illegal sex discrimination against female student athletes. Allowing males to compete against them, deprives these girls of athletic opportunities afforded to them by federal civil rights law.

The U.S. Department of Education’s “current allocation of funds to the California Department of Education for fiscal year 2025 is $44.3 billion.” The Education Department could terminate federal education funding to California at a time many school districts are facing financial hardships.

“The Governor of California has previously admitted that it is ‘deeply unfair’ to force women and girls to compete with men and boys in competitive sports,” said Attorney General Pamela Bondi. “But not only is it ‘deeply unfair,’ it is also illegal under federal law. This Department of Justice will continue its fight to protect equal opportunities for women and girls in sports.”

The suit seeks declaratory, injunctive, and damages relief for violations of Title IX, which prohibits sex-based discrimination in any education program or activity that receives federal funding.

On June 25, the Trump administration announced that the California Department of Education had violated civil rights law by allowing transgender students to compete on girls sports teams. Federal laws require schools to provide girls an equal opportunity to compete in sports while laws in California allow boys and girls to compete in sports and use locker rooms of the gender they identify with.

On Monday, California officials formally rejected the Office of Civil Rights determination that California was violating the rights of female students.

“The California Department of Education … respectfully disagrees with OCR’s analysis and it will not sign the proposed resolution agreement,” wrote Len Garfinkel, general counsel for the department.

Title IX is a 1972 law forbidding sex discrimination based in education.