Buncombe County Schools under federal Title IX investigation over bathroom access

A federal civil rights probe has landed on Buncombe County Schools after a parent complained that girls were being forced to share female-only restrooms with biological men. The Office for Civil Rights said it will determine whether the district violated Title IX, a move that could force changes in how schools handle restroom access, privacy complaints and sex-discrimination reports.

The investigation opened June 17, 2026, and puts Asheville-area families back in the middle of a fight that has already touched the Buncombe County Board of Education, local activists and state lawmakers. OCR said it is examining whether the district allowed biological men to access girls’ restrooms, a claim the federal agency will weigh against district policy and any response to earlier complaints.

Buncombe County Schools says on its website that it does not discriminate on the basis of sex in education programs or activities. The district lists Shanon Martin, its director of student services, as Title IX coordinator and provides a phone number for Title IX inquiries, signaling that parents and students who have concerns are supposed to route complaints through the district as well as OCR. The federal investigation raises the stakes for families who say restroom access, privacy and reporting procedures have not been handled consistently.

The case did not emerge in a vacuum. In early 2024, LGBTQ+ advocacy groups filed a Title IX complaint over Buncombe County’s implementation of North Carolina’s Parents’ Bill of Rights, also known as Senate Bill 49. By that fall, the Buncombe County Board of Education had unanimously, 7-0, passed interim Title IX policies while federal litigation over the 2024 sex-discrimination regulations played out.

Those interim rules were later rescinded after a federal court vacated the 2024 Title IX regulations nationwide, and the board reinstated its 2020-era policies, which had last been amended in 2020 to address sexual harassment. Under the interim policies, anything that constituted sex discrimination, not just sexual harassment, would have triggered a Title IX procedural response. That shifting landscape is part of what now makes the district vulnerable to scrutiny: parents and staff have been left navigating changing rules while complaints over student privacy kept mounting.

The current investigation may now force the district to spell out how it separates boys’ and girls’ facilities, how it responds when parents object, and whether it followed its own procedures in earlier disputes. For Buncombe County families, the outcome could shape not just one bathroom policy but the broader rules governing student privacy, sex discrimination and the district’s duty to answer complaints in real time.