By COLLIN BINKLEY, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration has found that the California Department of Education and the state’s high school sports federation violated civil rights law by allowing transgender girls to compete on girls sports teams.

The federal Education Department announced the finding Wednesday and proposed a resolution that would require California to bar transgender women from women’s sports and strip transgender athletes of records, titles and awards. It’s the latest escalation in the Republican administration’s effort to bar transgender athletes from women’s sports teams nationwide.

If California rejects the proposal, the Education Department could move to terminate the state’s federal education funding.

“The Trump Administration will relentlessly enforce Title IX protections for women and girls, and our findings today make clear that California has failed to adhere to its obligations under federal law,” Education Secretary Linda McMahon said. “The state must swiftly come into compliance with Title IX or face the consequences that follow.”

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Title IX is a 1972 law forbidding sex discrimination based in education.

California education and sports officials did not immediately respond to requests for comment Wednesday.

Federal officials opened an investigation into the California Interscholastic Federation in February after the organization said it would abide by a state law allowing athletes to compete on teams consistent with their gender identity. That followed an executive order signed by President Donald Trump that was intended to ban transgender athletes from participating in girls and women’s sports.

In April, McMahon’s department opened an investigation into the California Department of Education over the same issue.

Both investigations concluded that state policies violated Title IX. The administration has been invoking the law in its campaign against transgender athletes, launching scores of investigations into schools, colleges and states. It’s a reversal from the Biden administration, which attempted to expand Title IX to provide protections for transgender students. A federal judge struck down the expansion before Trump took office in January.

The administration’s proposed resolution would require California to notify schools that transgender athletes should be barred from girls athletic teams and that all schools must “adopt biology-based definitions of the words ‘male’ and ‘female.’” The state would also have to notify schools that any conflicting interpretation of state law would be considered a violation of Title IX.

Athletes who lost awards, titles or records to transgender athletes would have their honors restored under the proposal, and the state would be required to send personal apology letters to those athletes.

A similar resolution was offered to Maine’s education agency in a separate clash with the administration over transgender athletes. Maine rejected the proposal in April, prompting a Justice Department lawsuit seeking to terminate the state’s federal education funding.

Under federal guidelines, California’s education office and the sports federation have 10 days to come into compliance or risk enforcement action.

The federation separately tested a pilot policy at a state track meet in May, allowing one extra competitor in three events featuring high school junior AB Hernandez, who is trans. The organization announced the change after Trump took to social medial to criticize Hernandez’s participation. The Justice Department said it would investigate Hernandez’s district and the state to determine if Title IX was being violated.

The Associated Press’ education coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

By PATRICK AFTOORA-ORSAGOS, Associated Press

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — The case behind the U.S. Supreme Court ruling legalizing same-sex marriage nationwide a decade ago is known as Obergefell v. Hodges, but the two Ohio men whose names became that title weren’t so at odds as it would seem, and are now friends.

One year after the Supreme Court’s June 26, 2015, decision, lead plaintiff Jim Obergefell was at an event for an LGBTQ+ advocacy organization when its former director asked if he wanted to meet Rick Hodges, who’d been the title defendant in his capacity as state health director in Ohio, one of the states challenged for not allowing same-sex couples to marry.

“I don’t know, you tell me. Do I want to meet Rick Hodges?” Obergefell recalls responding.

The two met for coffee in a hotel and hit it off.

This photo provided by Rick Hodges shows Jim Obergefell, left, and Rick Hodges at an event in Cleveland, Ohio in April 2019. (Rick Hodges via AP)

Hodges said he wanted to meet Obergefell because he’s an “icon.” He said he remembers telling Obergefell something along the lines of: “I don’t know if congratulations are in order because this began with you losing your husband, but I’m glad you won and I’ve never been so happy to lose in my life.”

Obergefell and John Arthur, who brought the initial legal action, were longtime partners living in Cincinnati. After Arthur was diagnosed with ALS, or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, in 2011, Obergefell became Arthur’s caregiver as the incurable condition ravaged his health. They flew to Maryland to marry before Arthur died in 2013, and the legal battle began when they learned their union wouldn’t be listed on the death certificate handled by the Ohio Department of Health.

Although Hodges’ role as health director required him to defend the state, it didn’t mean that his personal views aligned with the state’s position.

“Personally, I was supportive of their efforts, as were some of the people who worked on the case for the state. Professionally, I had a job to do and I did it to the best of my ability,” Hodges said.

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In the months leading up to the court’s decision, Hodges had gathered a group of Ohio lawyers to develop the paperwork needed to create the licensing system for judges to grant same-sex couples marriage licenses on the day of the decision if the Supreme Court ruled in their favor, said Obergefell’s lead attorney in the case, Al Gerhardstein.

Gerhardstein said Obergefell and Hodge’s friendship is unusual in a “very positive and exemplary way.”

“We need more models like that as we struggle with difficult social issues,” he said.

The duo said they see each other two to three times per year and have routinely spoken together at conferences and panels.

“It’s funny, whenever we go into an event together, everybody claps for him and looks at me like I’m the prince of darkness until we’re done, and then it’s great,” Hodges said.

They are seeing each other more often this year since it’s the 10th anniversary of the decision. Recently, they saw each other at a symposium at Northern Kentucky University and at another event, sponsored by Equality Ohio, the same organization that first led to their introduction.

“I can’t think of other cases where the plaintiff and the defendant are friends. They might exist, I don’t know about them,” Obergefell said. “But I’m really glad that Rick and I are friends.”

CUDAHY, Calif. (AP) — The vice mayor of a tiny Southern California city is under fire after appearing to call on street gangs to organize in the face of immigration sweeps by federal agents in and around Los Angeles.

In a video post on social media that’s since been deleted, Cynthia Gonzalez, vice mayor of Cudahy, said, “I want to know where all the cholos are at in Los Angeles.”

“You guys are always tagging everything up, claiming hood, and now that your hood’s being invaded by the biggest gang there is, there ain’t a peep out of you,” Gonzalez said.

She further referenced “18th Street” and “Florence,” two infamous street gangs, and questioned why gang members were not protesting or speaking up about the immigration raids.

“We’re out there fighting our turf, protecting our turf, protecting our people and, like, where you at?” she said.

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The video seemed to suggest Gonzalez was calling on gang leaders to “help out and organize” as U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other federal agencies participate in the Trump administration’s stepped-up enforcement of immigration laws.

The Department of Homeland Security called Gonzalez’s comments “despicable.”

“She calls for criminal gangs — including the vicious 18th street gang — to commit violence against our brave U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement law enforcement,” the department said in a post on X that included Gonzalez’s video. “This kind of garbage has led to a more than 500% increase in assaults against our U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement law enforcement officers. Secretary Noem has been clear: If you assault a federal officer, you will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”

Gonzalez did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The city of Cudahy said in a statement Tuesday it was aware of the video.

“The comments made by the Vice Mayor reflect her personal views and do not represent the views or official position of the City of Cudahy,” the statement read. “The City will not be providing further comment.”

Cudahy is a Los Angeles suburb that’s home to 22,000 residents, about 10 miles south of downtown LA. According to U.S. Census data, 97% of residents are of Hispanic heritage.

Sometimes, when presidents discover they are being slowly manipulated into Washington’s political quicksand, it can be helpful if they check out how a predecessor dealt with a similar problem – to avoid getting trapped, big-time.

So we are here today to help America’s 47th president, Donald Trump, by replaying for him a predecessor’s greatest moment of presidential success. We only hope we are doing it in time for Trump to get himself out of a mess he got himself into, but may not have even discovered yet. We just hope we can help him discover it before our 47th president’s problem becomes our crisis – and then our future generations’ nightmare.

We are talking today about vaccine politics.

Our 47th president’s most famously named, unusually selected cabinet member ignited the new vaccine politics controversy on June 9. Secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., wrote an opinion column in the Wall Street Journal announcing he was firing all 17 members of a vaccine advisory committee that recommends vaccine approvals and dosages for the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (shorthanded as CDC).

The son of a Democratic Party icon who campaigned for a Republican president name-called the nameless physicians and vaccine experts as he fired them, accusing them of “skewed science … persistent conflicts of interest” and being “a rubber stamp for any vaccine.”

Among the things RFK Jr. left unsaid was any current and valid proof of the charges he was making about the 17 people he just fired en masse – and the fact that he has long been a crusading vaccine critic whose accusations have been analyzed and rejected as unproven by numerous media and professional scientific investigators.

When the experts have been paid for studies they have run for various companies, they declare those conflicts, fact checkers reported. Then they either don’t participate in the committee analysis, or they are granted a waiver that means they can participate in discussions but do not vote on the recommendation. “There’s no evidence of problematic conflicts of interest or that the group inadequately scrutinizes vaccines,” a detailed report by FactCheck.org concluded.

But Kennedy wrote that: “A clean sweep is needed to re-establish public confidence in vaccine science.” And what made Kennedy’s accusations all the more forceful was that he must be considered to be speaking in the name of his boss, President Donald Trump.

And that brings us to our mission today: searching for a predecessor who handled vaccine politics somewhat differently – and whose example might now help our 47th president.

The example: our 45th president

Our 45th president walked to the microphone of the auditorium in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, just next door to the White House. It was Dec. 8, 2020, a month after his election defeat. Yet Trump had no intention of acknowledging that result. Not then; not now. But on that 2020 day, Trump began talking enthusiastically about a far different result that will forever be celebrated as the most important accomplishment of Trump’s first presidency:

“I’m honored to welcome doctors, scientists, industry executives, and state and local leaders to our historic Operation Warp Speed Vaccine Summit … It’s been an incredible success … From the instant the coronavirus invaded our shores, we raced into action to develop a safe and effective vaccine at breakneck speed. It would normally take five years, six years, seven years, or even more … We harnessed the full power of government, the genius of American scientists, and the might of American industry to save millions and millions of lives all over the world … The gold standard vaccine has been done in less than nine months … We will soon end the pandemic, and we will save millions and millions of lives, both in our country and all over the world.”

Today, after Kennedy’s smearing of the 17 experts he just fired in the name of politics, one phrase spoken on that December 2020 day by Trump should be resonating in Trump’s mind: “The genius of American scientists.”

If America’s 47th president truly wants to Make America Great Again, he can start by embracing the honesty and accuracy of our 45th president’s phrase – and the patriotism of all the science and medical experts his HHS secretary vilified without a shred of current, conclusive evidentiary proof.

Bobby Jr., whom I first met when he was a boy at Hickory Hill (the family’s horse-farm-like suburban Virginia estate), knows his dad would have made him apologize to each of the fired advisers he smeared.

Our 47th president, who, unlike Bobby Jr.’s dad, survived an assassin’s evil, should respect Bobby Sr.’s decency and invite the smeared 17 to a White House do-over. Let them also be invited to rejoin an expanded bipartisan vaccine advisory panel.

And let’s move on with the remaking of America’s greatness – by restoring America’s decency.

Martin Schram, an op-ed columnist for Tribune News Service, is a veteran Washington journalist, author and TV documentary executive. Readers may send him email at martin.schram@gmail.com.

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