National · The Data

Education Department releases 2023-24 CRDC with all gender identity data suppressed under executive order

The data collection includes new fields on nonbinary students, but the numbers were replaced with a suppression code, citing President Trump's executive order. The release is the first without a First Look Report in over a decade.

School Decision NewsroomSeptember 5, 2026

The U.S. Education Department released the 2023-24 Civil Rights Data Collection on August 31, 2025, months earlier than its estimated December 2025 deadline, but without the customary First Look Report that has accompanied every CRDC release for more than a decade. In every data field related to nonbinary students and gender identity, the numbers were replaced with a code indicating suppression in compliance with an executive order.

37Data files in the 2023-24 CRDC in which gender identity or nonbinary student data were suppressed [3]

The suppressed fields include nonbinary student enrollment counts, discipline data such as in-school suspensions and expulsions, harassment and bullying allegations on the basis of gender identity, and whether districts have written policies prohibiting such harassment. The 2023-24 collection was the first in which the nonbinary gender category was a required field for schools already tracking it, making it the first opportunity for comprehensive nationwide data on nonbinary student experiences.

Data suppression and precedent

The suppression follows a pattern of the CRDC's contents shifting with each administration. During the first Trump administration, the Education Department added questions about religious harassment and sexual assault while cutting back on questions about school spending, teacher absenteeism, and course access. The Obama administration had previously expanded questions related to disparate-impact remedies and transgender student inclusion. The Biden administration introduced the nonbinary category as optional in 2021-22 and made it required for 2023-24.

The Education Department has separately eliminated the nonbinary student category and all gender identity references from the forthcoming 2025-26 CRDC, stating that its costs outweigh its benefits and that most districts use two values for recording student sex. A former OCR official contrasted the decision to stop collecting data going forward with the suppression of already-collected data, calling the latter worse.

What the research says

724,000Estimated number of children nationwide who identify as transgender, including nonbinary youth, according to a UCLA analysis cited by NPR [1]

The CRDC remains the most comprehensive federal source on student civil rights, covering discipline disparities, AP access, and harassment allegations on bases other than gender identity. In the 2023-24 release, the department also added new required data elements on preschool suspensions, school shootings, teacher retention, and credit recovery.

A researcher noted that this is the first time she has seen data suppression in the CRDC due to an executive order rather than data-quality reasons. The absence of a First Look Report means the data is not easily accessible for parents to see what is happening in their school communities.

Some observers expressed concern about the politicization of the data collection. A scholar from the American Enterprise Institute said the CRDC is an important responsibility and that the delay in release was a problem, but also noted difficulty in seeing future administrations treating data collection as a nonpartisan professional responsibility. An advocacy group director said the quiet release and lack of a First Look Report is part of a pattern of attacking evidence.

Analysis

By the School Decision Newsroom, written after the reporting above was filed.

Every prior administration changed what the CRDC would collect next. None suppressed what it already had.

Since 1968, the CRDC has been reshaped by each presidency. Obama added transgender-inclusion questions, Trump's first term added religious harassment data while cutting spending questions, Biden made nonbinary a required field. But in every prior case, the change applied to future collections. The 2023-24 data was already gathered from nearly every public school in the country. Suppressing collected data retroactively is something no previous administration has done in the CRDC's 57-year history. A former OCR chief, Catherine Lhamam, called it worse than stopping future collection, because the information exists and reflects real student experiences that now no one can see.

[1][7]

The executive order behind this is government-wide. Education is one of several agencies it has touched.

The suppression cites Executive Order 14168, signed January 20, 2025, which directs all federal agencies to recognize only male and female sex and to remove anything that "promotes gender ideology." The same order drove the CDC to take down HIV and youth risk behavior data within days of signing, and the NIH to cancel research grants referencing gender. The Education Department's suppression of CRDC fields is one application of a directive spanning health, science, and personnel policy across the federal government. This is not an education-specific decision; it is a government-wide policy being applied to schools.

[1][8][9][10]

Without a First Look Report, the remaining CRDC data is downloadable but not readable for most parents.

The First Look Report has accompanied every CRDC release for over a decade, providing plain-language national summaries of discipline disparities, AP access, and harassment rates. The 2023-24 release is the first to skip it. Raw data files are available at civilrightsdata.ed.gov, but they require statistical software to parse. A parent who previously could open a PDF and see how their school district compared on suspension rates or bullying now needs to download and cross-reference large datasets themselves. The information is technically public, but the layer that made it usable for families is gone.

[1][11][12]

Sources

NPR. Long-awaited civil rights data about students is finally out View
AP News. Trump administration removes gender data from school civil rights survey View
K-12 Dive. Education Department's latest civil rights data redacts hundreds of LGBTQ+ entries View
U.S. Department of Education, Office for Civil Rights. 2023-24 Civil Rights Data Collection: General Overview, Changes, and List Data Elements View
K-12 Dive. Education Department stops collecting some LGBTQ+ student data View
U.S. Department of Education, Office for Civil Rights (OMB Supporting Statement). Mandatory Civil Rights Data Collection October 2024 View
EdWeek. Ed. Dept. Releases Data on Schools' Racial Disparities Months Late View
Reuters. US health agencies scrub HIV, other data to remove 'gender ideology' View
The Atlantic. CDC Data Are Disappearing View
ProPublica. Trump's NIH Axed Research Grants Despite Court Order View
U.S. Department of Education. 2021-22 Civil Rights Data Collection A First Look Report View
U.S. Department of Education, Office for Civil Rights. About CRDC | Civil Rights Data View