Good.
The U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights opened an investigation Monday into Katy Independent School District to determine if its controversial gender identity policy discriminates against students, according to records obtained by the Houston Landing.
The investigation comes after the Landing reported in November 2023 that Katy ISD revealed the gender identities of 19 students to their parents in the two months after the policy passed. Several weeks later, student advocacy organization Students Engaged in Advancing Texas used the report’s findings in a federal Title IX complaint alleging Katy ISD discriminated against these students on the basis of sex.
Katy’s conservative-majority school board was one of the first in greater Houston to pass a policy that requires staff to disclose students’ gender identity to parents and allow employees to reject students’ requests to use different pronouns, among other protocols.
Trustees narrowly passed the policy, 4-3, in August 2023 during a heated seven-hour meeting where nearly 100 community members pleaded with the board to reject it.
The Office for Civil Rights, or OCR, enforces federal Title IX law, which prohibits sex discrimination in federally-funded education programs or activities. The OCR has informed Katy ISD and requested information and documentation for the investigation, records show.
See here and here for some background, and here for the story of a now-former Katy ISD student who was adversely affected by this policy. As the Trib notes, Katy ISD is not the first Texas school district to be subject to a federal investigation of this kind, but it’s still pretty rare. Also good to know that the complaint process can get results. I have no idea how long this may take, but as the story notes the goal is to get Katy ISD back into compliance with federal regulations. That could happen quickly if they choose to reverse their existing policy, but if they don’t then it could go on for months. I hope they choose to comply, but I’m not counting on it. As with so many other things, it’s going to take winning some elections there for some real change to happen. The Chron has more.