EXCLUSIVE — The U.S. Department of Education is referring its Title IX investigations into Minnesota and its State High School League to the Title IX Special Investigations Team.
The step comes after a high school girls’ softball team won a state championship with the help of a transgender pitcher. The investigations team is comprised of members from both the Department of Education and the U.S. Department of Justice, according to Education Secretary Linda McMahon.
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“The Trump administration has a duty to protect women and girls and uphold federal civil rights, and I am pleased to partner with Attorney General Pam Bondi to elevate the Department’s investigations in Minnesota to the Title IX Special Investigations Team,” McMahon told the Washington Examiner on Thursday.
McMahon added that Minnesota’s “continued indifference to females’ civil rights is completely unacceptable.”
“We must ensure women and girls are not stripped of their hard-earned accolades or subjected to the danger and indignity of unfair competitions, and we will fight to restore anti-discrimination protections under Title IX to the fullest extent of the law,” she said.
Mahon’s decision, announced Thursday, comes after a transgender pitcher from Champlin Park High School, junior Marissa Rothenberger, helped their team last weekend win the Minnesota state girls’ softball championship. Rothenberger gave away only three hits, striking out six players in the championship game on Friday.
Rothenberger’s participation in this year’s season follows President Donald Trump‘s “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports” executive order, prompting legal action by three anonymous female players.
It also comes as Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN), who is testifying before the House Oversight Committee in Congress on Thursday, has defended the transgender community as other potential 2028 Democratic presidential candidates, such as Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA), have distanced themselves from the issue.
“It’s a mistake,” Walz told The Independent last month. “And here’s the thing: We need to tell people your cost of eggs, your healthcare being denied, your homeowner’s insurance, your lack of getting warning on tornadoes coming has nothing to do with someone’s gender.”
The Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights opened a Title IX investigation into the Minnesota State High School League in February after it declined to change its state policies permitting student-athletes to compete in sports based on their gender identity, regardless of Trump’s executive order.
The Office for Civil Rights then opened a counterpart investigation into the Minnesota Department of Education last week after receiving a complaint alleging that it has also kept policies permitting male athletes to take part in female sports and use female facilities.
These investigations will be elevated to the Title IX Special Investigations Team, which was set up in April to streamline investigations and expedite enforcement amid a number of Title IX cases.
Simultaneously, Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison launched his own legal action in April against the Trump administration to protect the state’s gender eligibility for sports policies after Democratic lawmakers in the state prevented passage of a bill that would have stopped biological males from taking part in girls’ and women’s sports.
“Why would a grown man sue the Trump administration to allow other biological males to participate in women’s sports? This is creepy and anti-woman,” the White House told Fox News at the time.
Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 and its implementing regulation is a federal law framework that prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex in any federally funded education program or activity.
The Department of Education has commemorated June as “Title IX Month” to mark the law’s 53rd anniversary.