The Department of Education announced on Friday that it will be enforcing Title IX protections on the basis of biological sex, returning to a 2020 rule from the first Trump administration.
The move was announced in a “Dear Colleague” letter to K-12 schools and institutions on higher education and comes after the Biden administration’s 2024 “Title IX rewrite” to expand protections to include gender identity and sexual orientation was ruled unlawful by the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky.
“The Biden Administration’s failed attempt to rewrite Title IX was an unlawful abuse of regulatory power and an egregious slight to women and girls,” acting Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Craig Trainor said in a statement. “Under the Trump Administration, the Education Department will champion equal opportunity for all Americans, including women and girls, by protecting their right to safe and separate facilities and activities in schools, colleges, and universities.”
In a press release, the Department of Education said that returning to the 2020 rule eliminated a “serious threat to campus free speech,” ensuring stronger due process protections during Title IX proceedings.
On his first day in office, President Donald Trump issued an executive order requiring all departments in the executive branch to enforce “sex-protective laws to promote [the] reality” that there are “two sexes, male and female.”
Trump signed another order requiring employees across multiple federal departments to remove their preferred pronouns from their email signatures by Friday afternoon.
The Department of Education’s announcement pours more cold water on legal efforts to ensure that transgender-identifying student-athletes, for example, may participate in the sport corresponding with their gender identity instead of their biological sex because the Office for Civil Rights does not recognize gender identity as a protected characteristic under Title IX.
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In December, the Biden administration withdrew a proposal that would have penalized any school that banned biological males from participating in women’s sports.
The Washington Examiner reached out to the Department of Education for comment.
This article was originally published at www.washingtonexaminer.com
