Dive Brief:
- The U.S. Department of Education on Tuesday is to formally undo the Biden administration's 2024 Title IX regulations, which for the first time had incorporated LGBTQ+ protections for students and school employees.
- The agency's move repeals the 2024 regulations, which had been stopped by the courts and were swept under the rug by the current Trump administration's revival of its 2020 Title IX rule.
- By the department's own account, it has not enforced the 2024 final rule for over a year and a half. The 2024 rule was also preliminarily enjoined by eight different courts in 2024 and then vacated by two different courts in early 2025 — partly because of the Biden administration's interpretation of Title IX's protections against sex-based discrimination to also cover "gender identity."
Dive Insight:
“Today’s rulemaking clears the Biden Administration’s illegal rewrite of Title IX from the Code of Federal Regulations and restores the commonsense language promulgated in the first Trump Administration, which we have been enforcing since the first days of the Administration,” said U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon, in a Sept. 28 statement, a day ahead of the final rule's scheduled publication in the Federal Register. The 2024 rule's revocation is to take effect upon publication.
The department is rescinding the 2024 rule without a public notice and comment period.
Opening it up for public comment would be "contrary to public interest," the agency said, because it would "considerably delay" an update that reflects court decisions to strike down the 2024 rule, which are no longer able to be appealed. "It is null," the department said in its final rule.
However, some still criticized the decision to not seek public comment. The Human Rights Campaign, for example, slammed the move in a Sept. 28 statement as "Orwellian" and "a monstrous injustice."
The National Women's Law Center, a Title IX and LGBTQ+ advocacy group, said the 2020 rule being enforced by the current administration "significantly weakens" protections for sexual harassment and assault survivors.
But Rep. Tim Walberg, R-Mich., chairman of the House Education and Workforce Committee, lauded the change as "consistent with the law" and for restoring "longstanding protections for women and girls."
Since President Donald Trump came into office for the second time, federal Title IX policy has reversed course. This Education Department has initiated a number of investigations into LGBTQ+-inclusive school district practices and moved to cut states off from funding if they have policies allowing transgender athletes to play on girls' and women's sports teams.
In fiscal year 2025, the Education Department's Office for Civil Rights did not enter into any resolution agreements for sexual harassment and assault cases in K-12 programs after Trump's inauguration.
Earlier this month, OCR announced one of its first resolution agreements closing an investigation into sexual misconduct under this administration. The agreement was with Virginia Beach City Public Schools in Virginia, which was found to have violated Title IX by failing to adequately investigate and record reports of sexual misconduct against students, including misconduct by an employee.
Under the agreement, the district is required to respond to all reports of alleged sexual harassment and develop a federally approved districtwide Title IX records system, among other changes.
