Full Breakdown
Trump Administration Removes Gender-Identity Data from Federal School Survey
9/5/2026, 4:09:07 AM
Data Suppression in the Civil Rights Data Collection
The Education Department’s Civil Rights Data Collection for the 2023-2024 school year was released this week without any information on nonbinary students or bullying based on gender identity. The survey, which normally gathers data from nearly every public school, shows that roughly 1,800 of more than 13,000 U.S. districts reported any information on transgender or nonbinary students in the prior collection. No accompanying analytical report was issued, and the only notice of the change was a single new row on the department’s data-tables page.
Background and Context
The Civil Rights Data Collection is a statutory, nationwide effort to track discipline, corporal punishment, bullying, harassment, and access to advanced coursework. Preparations for the latest round began under the Biden administration, and the questionnaire was sent to schools a month before Trump’s inauguration, marking one of the most comprehensive attempts to capture the experiences of trans and nonbinary students. The data removal aligns with a broader pattern identified by the Williams Institute, which counted about 360 instances where the Trump administration excised sexual-orientation or gender-identity questions from federal surveys, ranging from Medicare to homeless-youth data. The administration has also pursued litigation, such as the Justice Department’s recent lawsuit against a Kansas City school district over its transgender-student policies.
Official Statements & Responses
The department did not issue a formal announcement about the data release itself, and the website’s homepage continued to highlight 2021-2022 data under a “What’s New?” heading.
Verbatim Quotes
- “We're losing the granular experience of those kids,” — Seth Galanter
- “No one's being held accountable to these kids,” — Lauren Bouton
- “The way this data was released is part of a long-standing pattern that we have observed for the last two years,” — Ivy Morgan, director of research and data at EdTrust, a Washington, D
