– The City of New York today announced a new lawsuit filed against the U.S. Department of Education (U.S. DOE), U.S. DOE Secretary Linda McMahon, and two other members of the U.S. DOE to protect grant funding that New York City Public Schools is owed by the federal agency after it, last month, sought to block the nation’s largest school system from obtaining $47 million in funds already awarded to the local system. Under a federal program called the Magnet Schools Assistance Program, the city has received five 5-year grants to support 19 New York City magnet schools. In September, U.S. DOE directed New York City Public Schools to violate both state and local law by overhauling its position on bathroom and locker room policies for transgender students in response to an apparent reinterpretation of Title IX under the Trump administration. In the lawsuit, the city argues that U.S. DOE’s decision to discontinue the funding is not only unlawful because they failed to follow the mandatory process required before taking action based on an alleged Title IX violation, but that they are wrong on what Title IX requires, as New York City policy continues to follow local, state, and federal laws, despite U.S. DOE’s attempts to say otherwise.
“The effort by the U.S. Department of Education to strip our school system of this grant funding violates statutorily-required process and conflicts with longstanding legal precedent regarding the interpretation of Title IX,” said New York City Corporation Counsel Muriel Goode-Trufant. “By trying to unlawfully coerce New York City Public Schools into changing its policies and violating local laws, the federal government is showing that it does not have the best interest of students and New Yorkers at heart.”
“With this lawsuit, New York City Public Schools is fighting back against the U.S. Department of Education’s attack on our magnet program and transgender and gender expansive students,” said New York City Public Schools Chancellor Melissa Aviles-Ramos. “U.S. DOE’s threat to cut off tens of millions of dollars in magnet funding unless we cancelled our protections for transgender and gender expansive students is contrary to federal, state, and local law, and, just as importantly, our values as New York City Public Schools. My deepest commitment is to provide our magnet students, our transgender and gender expansive students, and every single student at New York City Public Schools with the ability to thrive academically and socially; to achieve that, my team and I work tirelessly to ensure every student feels seen, supported, and safe. We use every possible tool to do that, as today’s legal action demonstrates.”
The discontinued Magnet School Assistance Program grants were funding 19 different magnet schools in Manhattan, Queens, Brooklyn, and the Bronx, which have historically served isolated, and overwhelmingly low-income Hispanic and Black students, providing curricula in topics such as cutting-edge science, technology, engineering, architecture, and math; multimedia and the arts; performing arts; engineering; journalism; civic activism; and leadership.
In the complaint — filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York — the city argues that the U.S. DOE’s purported discontinuation of the grants is being carried out unlawfully, without observing procedures required by Title IX and the federal regulations governing the operation of the grants. These laws and regulations collectively require the U.S. DOE to provide notice, an opportunity for a hearing, express findings on the record, and an opportunity to request reconsideration, among other procedural safeguards — none of which were afforded here. Instead, as outlined in the complaint, the U.S. DOE demanded policy changes within three days to comport with “a novel interpretation of Title IX that is not supported by any law, is contrary to the determinations of multiple federal circuit courts, and is contrary to the New York state Constitution and statute.” The city seeks to restore the schools to the status that they held a month ago by requesting that the grant discontinuation be vacated and set aside as arbitrary and capricious, contrary to law, an abuse of discretion, and as having been undertaken without observance of procedures required by law.
Today’s lawsuit follows a series of letters between the U.S. DOE and New York City Public Schools.
- In the first letter, on September 16, 2025, U.S. DOE listed six steps the federal government expected New York City Public Schools to take in order to comply with its new and inaccurate interpretation of Title IX and therefore be eligible to maintain its Magnet School Assistance Program grant funding. The letter gave New York City Public Schools three business days to comply with the requests or lose funding.
- New York City Public Schools responded on September 19, 2025, requesting additional time to consider how to respond to the demand.
- In an email dated September 20, 2025, the U.S. DOE rejected that request and reiterated its demand that New York City Public Schools revoke its guidelines to support transgender and gender expansive students. DOE extended the deadline to comply with the requested demands to Tuesday, September 23, 2025, at 5:00 PM, without any willingness to recognize the directives contradict both local regulations and state law. New York City Public Schools has continued to stand by the legality of its guidelines.
- Then, as outlined in the complaint, on September 26, 2025, U.S. DOE “compounded their chaotic and unlawful actions by resetting the end of the grants’ performance periods to the next day. The U.S. DOE took all of these actions without warning, well after school budgets had been set, and two weeks after the 2025-2026 school year had already begun.”
New York City is fully compliant with Title IX, which prevents discrimination on the basis of sex. Additionally, New York State Education Law § 12, New York Executive Law § 296, and New York City Human Rights Law § 8-107 all prohibit discrimination on the basis of gender, which is defined to include gender identity or gender expression. Both the Office of the New York Attorney General and the New York State Board of Regents have made clear that state laws require that “transgender and gender expansive students have the right to use facilities, including restrooms and locker rooms, or participate on school athletic teams consistent with their gender identity.”
Today’s lawsuit is accompanied by a motion seeking an immediate preliminary injunction against the federal government to prevent it from cutting off this crucial funding to New York City Public Schools pending the resolution of the lawsuit.
October 16, 2025 NEW YORK
Sources: NYC.gov , Big New York news BigNY.com
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