According to a Federal Register notice published August 7, 2025, the U.S. Department of Education (USDE) is proposing to abandon data collection on transgender and nonbinary students, including on whether they are victims of harassment and bullying and whether school districts have policies prohibiting those incidents. The changes come as part of the Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC) for the 2025-26 and 2027-28 school years, a mandated survey of all public school districts that has been administered for over five decades. The USDE noted on its website that the CRDC has “captured data on students’ equal access to educational opportunities to understand and inform schools’ compliance with the civil rights laws” enforced by the USDE’s Office for Civil Rights.
The proposed changes to the upcoming collections eliminate transgender students and the term “gender identity” from the USDE’s definition of “rape” and “sexual assault and, according to the USDE, are being proposed to comply with the 2020 Title IX rule, which excludes LGBTQ+ students from sex-based discrimination protections.
The CRDC is used to inform civil rights compliance and discrimination investigations.
The USDE is accepting comments on the notice until September 8, 2025.For more from K-12 Dive, click here.