The Mt. Pleasant school district understands there’s legal risks to defying President Donald Trump’s executive orders, but what that means for its transgender student policies remains unclear.

The district is one of at least four in Michigan facing formal complaints over policies that seemingly conflict with a January executive order from Trump titled Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports and his administration’s policies on gender.

The EO states 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.”

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

School board trustees in Mt. Pleasant discussed how the EO impact the district’s policies in a closed session, before providing an overview to the public at a meeting on Monday.

“What I took from the conversation is there is legal risk to the district by having this policy,” Board Secretary Melissa Isaac said.

“What has been communicated by our district’s legal counsel is that there is significant risk of maintaining this policy as written, specifically risk of losing very necessary federal funding,” Trustee Madison Chapman said. “If we were to rescind this policy, that doesn’t change our district’s commitment to student safety, but it does ensure that we are complying with the law.”

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Mt. Pleasant resident Bree Moeggenberg filed an official complaint with the Michigan Department of Education over the district’s transgender policies, which states “The Board supports protecting the rights of all students to self-identify and use the name, pronouns, and facilities that correspond with the gender identity.”

The complaint continues: “The Board further prohibits unlawful discrimination, bullying, and harassment on the basis of gender, gender identity, gender expression, or gender-based stereotypes pursuant to Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972.”

Mt. Pleasant Superintendent Jennifer Verlager gave the Morning Sun her perspective.

“We are committed to promoting safe schools and a culture of respect, civility and excellence,” Verleger said. “We are currently reviewing recent executive orders with our Board and legal team. We have not received any complaints and will review any complaints if and when they are received in accordance with our school policies and procedures. We will continue to comply with federal, state and local requirements and maintain our focus on providing a world-class education.”

Other Michigan districts facing complaints over outdated transgender student policies include Rochester Community Schools, Plymouth-Canton Community Schools, and Hartland Consolidated Schools, according to The Detroit News.

Matthew Wilk, attorney and president of Get Kids Back to School, told The Detroit News columnist Kaitlyn Buss all four districts “have policies that do not protect the rights of young women in bathrooms, locker rooms and sports teams.”

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

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 noted the Supremacy Clause in the U.S. Constitution suggests otherwise.

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

The defiance in Michigan 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.

“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.”

Unfortunately, leaders at the Michigan High School Athletic Association seem to disagree, and have opted instead to defy Trump’s EO, at least for now.

“We’re just waiting for the next step I suppose,” MHSAA spokesman Geoff Kimmerly told Bridge Michigan, also pointing to the 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, Michigan Republicans are calling on Trump’s Department of Justice to investigate the private nonprofit for noncompliance.

“The Michigan High School Athletic Association (@MHSAA) is doubling down and refusing to comply with @DonaldTrump’s executive order protecting girls’ sports,” state Sen. Lana Theis, R-Brighton, posted to X on Wednesday. “I’m calling on @PamBondi to join me and my Republican colleagues in investigating this and ensuring that women’s sports remain protected.”

Bondi, who Trump tapped to serve as the United States’ 87^th attorney general, 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.