Several Michigan school districts are defying President Donald Trump, and they may soon pay the price.

At least four of Michigan’s public school districts face federal complaints that allege their policies on gender identity violate civil rights outlined in Title IX, which prohibits discrimination in schools that receive federal funding.

Rochester Community Schools, Plymouth-Canton Community Schools, Hartland Consolidated Schools and Mt. Pleasant Public Schools all “have policies that do not protect the rights of young women in bathrooms, locker rooms and sports teams,” Matthew Wilk, attorney and president of Get Kids Back to School, told The Detroit News columnist Kaitlyn Buss.

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Wilk filed a complaint against Plymouth-Canton schools on Tuesday, and “there are more coming,” he said.

President Trump on Jan. 29 issued an executive order titled Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports that makes it clear it’s “the policy of the United States to rescind all funds from educational programs that deprive women and girls of fair athletic opportunities, which results in endangerment, humiliation, and silencing of women and girls and deprives them of privacy.”

“It shall also be the policy of the United States to oppose male competitive participation in women’s sports more broadly, as a matter of safety, fairness, dignity, and truth,” it read.

The EO reversed Title IX expansions under President Joe Biden that aimed to redefine sex and gender as a personal perception, rather than a biological reality.

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While Trump’s order tasks executive departments and agencies with reviewing federal grants to rescind funds for schools that fail to comply, Michigan Superintendent Michael Rice is advising school leaders to disregard the 47^th POTUS.

Rice argued in a Feb. 13 memo that schools must follow Michigan’s Elliott-Larson Civil Rights Act, expanded by Democrats in 2023 to include protections for “gender identity,” if it conflicts with federal Title IX law.

“Neither a presidential executive order nor federal regulations, whether related to federal funding or not, can supersede or otherwise set aside our obligation to comply with a validly enacted state anti-discrimination law,” Rice wrote. “State civil rights law remains the law.”

Buss notes the Supremacy Clause in the U.S. Constitution suggests otherwise.

“Democrats may see Trump’s executive orders as fleeting and unenforceable. But the applicable law is Title IX,” she wrote.

Rice’s guidance follows a U.S. District Court ruling last year that blocked enforcement of the Biden administration’s Title IX rewrite in 100 Michigan schools as part of a lawsuit in Kansas. The Great Education Initiative, a Michigan-based nonprofit representing parents and students, filed their own federal lawsuit in October in hopes of blocking enforcement in all Michigan schools.

In Hartland, school officials referenced Trump’s executive order in a letter that seemingly heeds Rice’s advice by vowing to make no changes to policies for “transgender and nonconforming students.”

Those policies state school officials must accept students’ chosen gender identity and provide restroom access and other services that align with it. The policy also shields that information from parents.

It’s a similar deal with Rochester’s “gender support plan,” according to Buss.

“It is high time that districts get back to educating children,” Wilk said. “One way is to make sure that, in accordance with Title IX, girls have the same rights they unquestionably had only a few short years ago.”

While many parents agree, and many states have already moved in that direction, the Michigan High School Athletic Association is simply refusing, for now.

“We’re just waiting for the next step I suppose,” MHSAA spokesman Geoff Kimmerly told Bridge Michigan, also pointing to Michigan’s Elliot-Larsen Civil Rights Act.

“Obviously there’s a conflict here, and it’s going to have to be worked out one way or another,” he said.

The plan for now, Kimmerly said, is “to continue to go with our policy as is” until there’s “more clarification” on the law.

In the meantime, the Trump administration is already working to crack down on state and local policies that seemingly defy Title IX, with investigations ongoing in Maine and five northern Virginia school districts.

In addition to the Title IX issue, Rice is also encouraging Michigan schools to defy Trump’s immigration enforcement efforts. In a Jan. 16 memo that also cites the Elliot-Larsen Civil Rights Act, he wrote the state law “expressly prohibits discrimination based on race or national origin and guarantees the full and equal enjoyment of public services and accommodations.”