Doe

Sept. 26 (UPI) — The Trump administration has halted funding to three public school districts — in Chicago, Fairfax, Va., and New York City over their diversity policies.

The Department of Education on Thursday pulled $65 million in magnet school funding from the districts 10 days after issuing them a warning, The New York Times reported.

On Sept. 16, the department sent letters to the district accusing them of violating civil rights law. The Trump administration took issue with all three districts allowing transgender students to play in sports and use the bathroom of their choice.

Federal officials also threatened to withhold funds from Chicago schools over a program specifically designed to help Black students, according to Axios.

Department of Education spokeswoman Julie Hartman said that because the districts were willing to “continue their illegal activity” means move to cut funding “falls squarely on them.”

“These are public schools, funded by hardworking American families, and parents have every right to expect an excellent education — not ideological indoctrination masquerading as ‘inclusive’ policy,” she said.

The Chicago Teachers Union said the district is “standing firm” against the Department of Education’s threats.

Chicago Public Schools “and the Board of Education made clear they will not abandon the Black Student Success Plan or roll back protections for transgender students,” a statement from the union said.

“Instead, the district is demanding due process and defending these policies as both legally required and essential for closing opportunity gaps and protecting vulnerable students.”

New York City Public Schools said it had asked the Trump administration for an extension in response to the Sept. 16 letter.

“Cutting this funding — which invests in specialized curricula, afterschool education and summer learning — harms not only the approximately 8,500 students this program currently benefits, but all of our students from underserved communities,” the district said.

Aug. 29 (UPI) — The U.S. Department of Education has said Denver Public Schools violated Title IX’s prohibition against sex discrimination by having all-gender bathrooms, amid the Trump administration’s targeting of LGBT rights in public spaces.

The Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights opened its investigation into the school district in late January after learning a month before that East High School had converted a second-floor, multi-stall bathroom for girls into an all-gender bathroom.

The Office for Civil Rights determined the district violated Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 as there was no girls-only designated washroom on the floor, though there was a boys-only washroom.

The school attempted to rectify the situation by converting the boys restroom into a gender-neutral bathroom as well, but the federal Office for Civil Rights states this still violates Title IX “because males are still allowed to invade sensitive female-only facilities.”

It was unclear if any other bathrooms in the district’s some 200 schools were all-gender facilities.

The Department of Education said Thursday that the district’s Denver Public Schools’ LGBTQ+ Toolkit that allows students to use bathrooms that match their gender identity in violation of Title IX.

Craig Trainor, acting assistant secretary for civil rights at the Department of Education, said in a statement that by having a gender-neutral washroom at East High School, the district create “a hostile environment for its students by endangering their safety, privacy and dignity while denying them access to equal educational activities and opportunities.”

“Denver is free to endorse a self-defeating gender ideology, but it is not free to accept federal taxpayer funds and harm its students in violation of Title IX,” he said.

President Donald Trump ran on an anti-transgender platform, and since returning to the White House in January has taken several executive actions that affect the LGBTQ communit’s rights, including some that impact public schools.

Last month, the U.S. Department of Education found five northern Virginia school districts in violation of Title IX over their transgender bathroom and changing room policies.

Maine, California, Oregon and Minnesota have also been under Trump administration investigations over allowing transgender girls to participate on girls’ sports teams.

“In the name of ‘equity,’ Denver Public Schools converted a girls’ restroom into an all-gender facility — putting gender ideology above girls privacy and dignity,” DOE Secretary Linda McMahon said on X.

Energy Secretary Chris Wright at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C. (pictured in May), said, “Investing in American energy enables energy independence and truly unleashes America’s ability to serve as the world leader in global energy.” File File Photo by Bonnie Cash/UPI | License Photo

July 11 (UPI) — The U.S. Department of Energy announced Friday it has approved an exchange from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, or SPR, with the ExxonMobil Corp. to ease issues that affect crude oil deliveries to the company’s Baton Rouge, La., refinery.

According to a press release from the DOE, U.S. Secretary of Energy Chris Wright sanctioned the move to help keep the regional supply of transportation fuels across Louisiana and the broader Gulf Coast stable. The DOE says this will also keep the SPR’s operational flexibility as is and won’t either impact or delay the Department’s continuing efforts toward refilling the reserve.

The agreement will provide up to one million barrels of crude oil from the SPR to ExxonMobil to support the restoration of refinery operations that had been diminished due to an offshore supply disruption. The release states that ExxonMobil will eventually return the borrowed oil, as well as an unannounced amount of additional barrels of crude to the SPR at no cost to taxpayers.

Under the exchange agreement, DOE will provide up to 1 million barrels of crude oil from the SPR. The exchange will support ExxonMobil’s restoration of refinery operations that were reduced due to an offshore supply disruption. ExxonMobil will return the borrowed crude along with additional barrels of crude oil for the SPR at no cost to the taxpayer.

“Investing in American energy enables energy independence and truly unleashes America’s ability to serve as the world leader in global energy,” Wright said in an X post Friday.

Los Angeles County is poised to pay nearly $2.7 million to a teenager whose violent beating at a juvenile hall launched a sprawling criminal investigation into so-called “gladiator fights” inside the troubled facility.

Video of the December 2023 beating, captured on CCTV, showed Jose Rivas Barillas, then 16, being pummeled by six juveniles at Los Padrinos Juvenile Hall as probation officers stood idly by. Each youth attacked Rivas Barillas for a few seconds before returning to breakfast. Two officers, later identified as longtime probation officials Taneha Brooks and Shawn Smyles, laughed and shook hands, encouraging the brawl.

“What made this unique is the video,” said Rivas Barillas’ attorney, Jamal Tooson, who said his client suffered a broken nose and traumatic brain injury. “The entire world got to witness the brutality that’s taking place with our children at the hands of the Los Angeles County Probation Department.”

The video, first reported by The Times, prompted a criminal investigation by the state attorney general’s office, which later charged 30 probation officers — including Brooks and Smyles — with allowing and encouraging fights among teens inside county juvenile halls. California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta referred to the coordinated brawls as “gladiator fights” and said his office’s CCTV review had turned up 69 such fights during the chaotic first six months after the hall opened in July 2023.

On Tuesday, the Board of Supervisors will vote on whether to approve the $2.67-million settlement to Rivas Barillas and his mother, Heidi Barillas Lemus.

According to a public summary of the “corrective action plan” that the Probation Department must produce before a large settlement, officials failed to review CCTV video of the fight and waited too long to transport the teen to a hospital and notify his family.

CCTV monitors are now “staffed routinely,” and officials are working on conducting random audits of the recordings, according to the plan. A spokesperson for the Probation Department did not respond to a request for comment.

Immediately after Rivas Barillas arrived at the Downey juvenile hall, Brooks demanded to know his gang affiliation, according to the claim filed with the county. Brooks said she had heard that Rivas Barillas, who is Latino, was from the “Canoga” gang and that she “hoped he could fight” before directing the other juveniles, all of whom were Black, to attack him in the day room, the claim stated.

After the video made headlines, accounts of teens forced by probation officers to fight have trickled out of Los Padrinos. A teen told The Times in March that officers at Los Padrinos rewarded him with a fast-food “bounty” — In-N-Out, Jack in the Box, McDonald’s — if he beat up kids who misbehaved. The teenager, who had previously been housed in the same unit as Rivas Barillas, said staffers would also organize fights when someone arrived who was thought to be affiliated with a gang that didn’t get along with the youths inside.

“We get a new kid, he’s from the hood. We have other hoods in here. We’re going to get all the fights out of the way,” he said at the time. “They were just setting it up to control the situation.”

Another teenager, identified in court filings as John (Lohjk) Doe, alleged in a lawsuit filed in February that soon after arriving at Los Padrinos in 2024, he was escorted by an officer to the day room. The officer, identified only by the surname Santos, told a youth inside the day room that “you have eleven (11) seconds” and watched as the youth attacked Doe, according to the lawsuit.

On another occasion, the same officer threatened to pepper-spray Doe if he didn’t fight another youth for 20 seconds. The teens who fought were rewarded with extra television and more time out of their cells, the suit alleged.

After the teen told a female officer about the two coordinated brawls, he was transferred to solitary confinement, the suit alleged.

Times staff writer James Queally contributed to this report.