Why Should Delaware Care?
Last week, the United States Department of Education said it would no longer require six school districts to enforce rules protecting students from discrimination based on their gender identity. One of those schools is the Cape Henlopen School District, which the Trump administration says was “burdened” by Biden-era policies.
The Cape Henlopen School District has been swept up into the Trump administration’s backlash against a Biden-era shift in civil rights law that included gender identity into federally mandated protections.
Last Monday, the U.S. Department of Education announced it would rescind agreements made with the Cape Henlopen School District — and five others across the country — that required those districts to enforce rules protecting transgender students.
Those resolution agreements are the mechanism the government uses to mandate compliance with anti-discrimination laws.
But it is not immediately clear what specifically precipitated Cape Henlopen’s inclusion on the list of districts.
A DOE official confirmed on background to Spotlight Delaware that a resolution agreement had been in effect with the Sussex County district prior to last week’s announcement. But the administration has not provided a copy of that resolution, nor details about what incident might have sparked it.
Further, the DOE’s Office of Civil Rights website lists no gender-identity settlements with Cape Henlopen. Archived versions of the website from previous years also do not show any such case.
The Cape Henlopen School District did not respond to Spotlight Delaware’s request for comment. But in a statement to The News Journal, the district said it had received correspondence from the DOE’s Office of Civil Rights regarding a settlement agreement of some kind dating to March 2024.
The Office of Civil Rights does list one settlement struck in June of 2024 between federal officials and Cape Henlopen staff, but it pertains to the district’s protections of people with disabilities. That settlement outlines, among other things, how staff should be trained about the types of harassment against people with disabilities, and ways to investigate them.
In a statement to Spotlight Delaware, DOE spokesperson Amelia Joy asserted that prior presidential administrations misinterpreted laws related to sex-based discrimination “to pander to political ideology and police ‘misgendering.’”
What led to this?
In late 2024, the administration of then-President Joe Biden required school districts to change their policies to align with new anti-discrimination regulations under the federal Title IX statute.
The following January, a federal judge in Kentucky struck down the Tittle IX overhaul, ruling that Biden overstepped his presidential authority. Shortly after the decision, federal education officials under the new Trump administration sent a “Dear Colleague” letter to K-12 and higher education institutions, stating that 2020-era Title IX rules would be used instead.
A month later, eight Delaware’s boards of education voted unanimously to advance measures that would revert their anti-discrimination policies to the 2020 language, citing guidance from the federal education department.
Those districts included Caesar Rodney, Colonial, Indian River, Woodbridge, Smyrna, Milford, Seaford, and Cape Henlopen.
What does it all mean for students?
For Dwayne Bensing, a Delaware civil rights attorney, the DOE’s latest move means that students or faculty who have been discriminated against for their gender identity should assume that the federal Office of Civil Rights is not a “friendly forum for such complaints.”
He also expressed doubt that federal officials would be able to effectively take on sex-based discrimination complaints of any kind under the Title IX statute because of recent cutbacks at the Office of Civil Rights.
Title IX protects individuals from various types of sex-based discrimination, including harassment at work, equal opportunities in school athletics, and pregnancy discrimination.
As part of efforts to shrink the size of the federal education department, the Trump administration last year “initiated layoffs” for about half the staff at the DOE’s Office of Civil Rights, according to a February report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office.
The Office of Civil Rights has also dismissed more than 6,000 complaints from March to September 2025, according to a January GAO report.
In its announcement last week, the Trump administration said Cape Henlopen and the other five districts were “freed” from enforcing Biden-era discrimination policies involving gender identity.
But, for Cape Henlopen, Delaware still requires the district to follow state laws that, among other things, allow transgender students to participate on sports teams that align with their gender identity.
The Cape Henlopen School District’s own anti-discrimination policy was last revised in August 2025, according to the district’s website. The policy does not explicitly mention protections based on gender identity.
In the past, Delaware students have told Spotlight Delaware that anti-LGBTQ rhetoric and bullying increased during the first Trump administration.
Delaware LGBTQ Commission Vice Chair Vienna Cavazos said they plan to discuss the Trump administration’s recent announcement with the commission in the future.
Both Bensing and Cavazos noted that students still have an ability to file Title IX complaints in state or federal court.
“They have the right in any Delaware school to be called the name that they want. Use the pronouns that they want; the bathrooms that they want; the basic dignity and respect of any student,” Cavazos said.
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