Arlington, Fairfax school systems sue Education Department over funding freeze tied to gender policies

Thomas Robertson | trobertson@wtop.com
August 29, 2025, 3:27 PM

Arlington and Fairfax counties’ public school districts are suing the Department of Education in an effort to protect their federal funding from being frozen in retaliation for the school systems’ gender policies surrounding the use of bathrooms and locker rooms.

The lawsuits come after the Education Department requested Arlington Public Schools, Fairfax County Public Schools, and three other Northern Virginia school districts to change their policies that allow transgender students to use bathrooms and locker rooms that align with their gender identity, rather than their biological sex.

The school systems refused, and the Education Department responded by placing them on “high-risk” status, meaning the department will scrutinize their federal reimbursement requests.

In their complaints, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Arlington and Fairfax county schools are seeking to have that status reversed. The school districts say tens of millions of dollars for critical services for students are on the line. {snip} WTOP has reached out to the Department of Education for comment. ... The Washington Post first reported the lawsuit.

WTOP’s Scott Gelman contributed to this report.

Thomas Robertson is an Associate Producer and Web Writer/Editor at WTOP. After graduating in 2019 from James Madison University, Thomas moved away from Virginia for the first time in his life to cover the local government beat for a small daily newspaper in Zanesville, Ohio.
trobertson@wtop.com