The U.S. Department of Education on Thursday accused Denver Public Schools of violating Title IX, the federal law that bans sex discrimination in education, after the district established all-gender bathrooms.

The Office for Civil Rights at the Education Department began an investigation of the district in January following the change at East High School, where a girls’ restroom was converted to an all-gender bathroom. The federal department said the decision violated Title IX regulations.

The district’s decision to redesignate a girls’ bathroom to an all-gender bathroom was in conflict with federal rules, Education Department officials said. The decision, officials noted, was also in violation of the department’s Office for Civil Rights and denied students equal access to school facilities.

Acting Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights, Craig Trainor, said the decision “effectively denied students equal access to sex-segregated facilities and created an objectively hostile environment.”

District officials said the bathroom redesignation came after student-led conversations and provided a privacy barrier that reaches the floor and stands 12 feet tall around toilets. School officials said the barrier would ensure privacy and security.

A second all-gender bathroom was later installed in a separate location on the same floor after concerns about fairness were raised. District officials also said students still had access to single-stall, all-gender bathrooms, as well as sex-segregated male and female bathrooms throughout the school.

In a letter to Denver Public Schools, the Education Department said it is proposing a resolution with four required actions the district must complete in 10 days. Failure to do so will result in enforcement measures, including a potential cutoff of federal funding.

As part of the resolution, the district will have to:

Change the use of all all-gender, multi-stall restrooms to sex-specific restrooms.

Cease policies that allow students to use a bathroom and locker room based on their gender identity rather than biological sex.

Establish “biology-based definitions” of “male” and “female” for all policies and practices related to Title IX.

Send out a memorandum of the law schools in the district, which would include language about privacy, dignity, and safety for students.

In a statement to the press, Trainor said the district’s decision created a facility that “violated students’ privacy, endangered their safety and dignity, and was fundamentally at odds with the text, structure, and purpose of Title IX.”

The decision “effectively denied students equal access to sex-segregated facilities and created an objectively hostile environment,” he continued.

In a statement to Education Week, a spokeswoman for the Denver school district said the process for the restroom change came through a student-led process. A spokesman for U.S. Secretary of Education, Miguel Cardona, who succeeded Betsy DeVos at the helm of the Department of Education, declined to comment on the resolution but said it was ongoing.

Trainor said denying students access to a bathroom under Title IX standards amounts to an unlawful denial of educational benefits.

“The district’s practice of allowing students to use their schools’ intimate facilities based on their gender identity rather than their biological sex unlawfully denies students equal access to educational opportunities, programs, and activities,” Trainor said in the statement.

“The district’s unlawful gender-identity- based bathroom and locker room policy violates Title IX because it operates to deny students equal access to the educational opportunities, programs, and activities the district provides,” Trainor continued. “And it threatens the safety, privacy, and dignity of all students in the district’s schools. This should not be a controversial conclusion; it’s the law.”

In a statement, Trainor said policies that allow such changes pose a threat to privacy and safety.

“It is not surprising to us that the Trump Administration’s OCR would issue such a letter. As Denver Public Schools has made clear, we will continue to support students and families as we work through this issue and any future actions that might be taken,” the spokesman said in the statement.

Trainor and other department officials have said similar policies have had the opposite effect of their stated goals.

In his statement, Trainor called the decision by the district an example of a policy that would “endanger student safety, privacy, and dignity.”

“Denver Public Schools violated Title IX and its implementing regulations by converting a sex-segregated restroom designated for girls in East High School to an ‘all-gender’ facility and by allowing students to use the high school’s intimate facilities on the basis of their gender identity rather than their biological sex,” he said.

Federal officials have highlighted privacy and safety as major issues when it comes to bathroom choices in the past.

Last week, the Education Department and the Department of Justice sued Jackson Public Schools in Mississippi, alleging that the district illegally segregated students based on race when it established single-occupancy, all-gender bathrooms.

In a statement to the Denver Post, District Superintendent Alex Marrero said “Denvers students have played a critical role in this process, and they will continue to do so. We are reviewing this resolution with our legal team.”

Denver School Board President Anne Rowe said “I’m really proud of the fact that the district in that short amount of time was able to make accommodations and move forward and put another bathroom in place, but we’re certainly not going to stop there. It will be an all-gender bathroom.”

District Defends Changes, Focus on Students

In an interview with Denver 7, Brian Hill, spokesperson for Denver Public Schools, said, “The decision was made about those restrooms after student-led conversations and activities.

“There’s a 12-foot tall privacy partition around every toilet in this restroom, so students will continue to have privacy and security as they were designed to do,” Hill added.

The district did not respond to a request for comment but said in an earlier statement, students still have a variety of bathroom options, including single-stall, all-gender bathrooms.

Sex Discrimination, National Debate

Sex discrimination has been a major talking point in debates nationwide over the last few years.

This month, the Trump Administration blocked transgender girls from using teams that don’t correspond with their biological sex through an executive order.

In Congress, Republican lawmakers have been looking at how to restrict bathroom usage and team participation for transgender students who don’t correspond with their biological sex.

Other Cases in Past

The Education Department has pursued multiple cases on gender and identity in schools and on college campuses in recent years. This week, the department said George Mason University broke federal law over unlawful diversity, equity, and inclusion practices.

DEI policies violated Title VI in the federal government’s view.