The Taft College case suggests a few lessons. First, it’s clear that the Biden administration’s interpretation of federal civil rights law requires public schools to perform “social transitions” (treating students as if they are the opposite sex). If this rule is applied in a non-college educational environment, such transitions can occur without school administrators informing or consulting parents. States, in response, should pass “Given Name Acts,” requiring school staff to refer to students by the name and pronoun on their birth certificates or provided to the school by their parents.

Second, OCR’s very interest in this case suggests that American educational institutions may not have many genuine civil rights problems anymore. Federal law requires that the OCR investigate all legitimate claims, but the office can choose how it allocates staff members’ time. The apparent depth and commitment of this investigation suggests that either OCR is shortchanging serious problems, or that it has nothing better to do.

Third and finally, when Republicans are in power, they should work to defund the OCR. Republicans opposed the Obama-era OCR’s forcing, respectively, school districts to adopt dangerously lenient discipline policies, colleges to use kangaroo courts to prosecute alleged sexual misconduct, and schools to let males into girls’ bathrooms. During the Trump administration, however, congressional Republicans dramatically boosted OCR’s funding, probably because they didn’t want to be branded as opponents of “civil rights.” If Republicans truly oppose ideologies like critical race theory and radical gender theory, however, they should yank funding from the Department of Education’s office of wokeness enforcement.