Center Requests RIDE to Repeal Its Transgender Regulation

Regulation Has No Basis in State Law, Violates Federal Law

Response Submitted To RIDE on February 14, 2025 following Projo Article

Click here for the February 28, 20205 letter from the Rhode Island Attorney General essentially urging Local Education Agencies, School Administrators and Educators to ignore federal law

The Law Centre at the RI Center for Freedom & Prosperity today published a legal letter and filed an official request with the Rhode Island Department of Education (RIDE) requesting that it repeal its 2018 Transgender Regulation.

As was detailed in the letter, “… this regulation has no basis in state law and is contrary to federal law and guidelines. As such, the Rhode Island Department of Education has placed itself and every member school district in this State at risk of civil rights violations, which are likely lead to investigations by the US Department of Education Office of Civil Rights, loss of federal funding, and/or discrimination lawsuits from aggrieved individuals.”

RIDE’s 2018 Regulation required each school district or LEA (Local Education Agency) to “adopt a policy addressing the rights of trans-gender and gender non-conforming students … ”

However, it appears that RIDE purposefully manipulated and dishonestly cited language from state law in justifying its Regulation by including “gender” and “sexual orientation” phrases that do not exist in the statute.

Attorney Gregory Piccirilli, advisor to the Law Centre who crafted the letter, this morning filed a formal petition with RIDE to request repeal Board of Education Regulation 200-RICR-30-10-1.

To avoid legal and financial consequences, the Center recommends that both RIDE and every school district in the State should rescind their existing transgender policies, if they were based on RIDE’s illegitimate Regulation and guidance, and to craft their own policies that comply with actual state and federal law.

Piccirilli is a member of the Law Centre sub-committee of the Board of Directors for the RI Center for Freedom of Prosperity. He, along with sub-committee chair, Giovanni Cicione, and fellow member, attorney Sue Cienki, are available for media interviews, upon request.