On behalf of the thousands of members of the Washington Parents Network, we want to thank the DOJ and DOE Joint Title IX Special Investigations Team for launching a directed investigation of the Washington Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI) for their many violations of parents rights and girls rights.
In our Title IX and Title VI complaints we recently submitted to the Department of Education Office of Civil Rights, we provided a mountain of evidence that, for the past 8 years, OSPI has imposed numerous requirements on Washington school districts that violate not only Title IX, the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, and the Protection of Pupil Rights Amendment but also Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
We also want to thank Congressman Dan Newhouse for encouraging the Special Investigations Team to launch this first in the nation investigation of numerous OSPI violations of federal law that extend far beyond Title IX violations. We have been assured that the Special Investigations team intends to investigate all OSPI civil rights violations occurring here in Washington state. We look forward to working with the Special Investigations Team to ensure that the civil rights of every student, every teacher and every parent in our state are restored.
It is time for Chris Reykdal to stop violating the civil rights of a million students here in Washington state and recognize that under Article VI Section 2 of the US Constitution, any Washington State Civil Rights laws that conflict with federal civil rights laws are null and void. His claim that Washington state civil rights laws allow him to ignore federal civil rights laws is not only absurd, it is a violation of his Oath of Office.
We further ask every school board in Washington State to honor the January 9, 2025 federal court order in the case of Tennessee v Cardona by immediately rescinding Policy 3211 as being in direct violation of Title IX as clarified by that Court Order and as clarified by the August 2024 US Supreme Court ruling in the same case. If OSPI continues to force school districts to violate Title IX, it could mean the retroactive loss of billions of dollars in federal funding due to Reykdal falsely claiming on his annual Title IX Certification Contracts for the past 8 years that Washington was in compliance with Title IX when, by the plain meaning of Title IX, Washington clearly was not in compliance. It is time for Reykdal to finally admit he was wrong, apologize to every student, parent, teacher and school board member for violating their civil rights - and immediately comply with federal law as is required by his Oath of Office.
Sincerely,
David Spring M. Ed.
Washington Parents Network