The U.S. Department of Education this week officially withdrew updates made under President Joe Biden to federal law prohibiting sex discrimination in education. Specifically, the Department of Education is removing language that expanded Title IX protections to cover discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.
The changes also mark the formal return of previous regulations, passed during Donald Trump’s first term, that significantly reduced the types of sexual misconduct and harassment that schools and universities were required to investigate.
Title IX is the federal law passed in the 1970s that prohibits sex discrimination in education. He is widely credited with making the United States a world leader in women’s sports and forcing schools and universities to investigate reports of sexual harassment and sexual misconduct.
Wrestling impresario turned federal education leader Linda McMahon announced changes to Title IX earlier this week, which she said would “(reduce) confusion for parents, students and educational institutions.” Change is, in a way, a matter of paperwork. As its own fact sheet notes, the federal agency had already enforced the pre-Biden version of Title IX, and several states never adopted the expanded protections, instead fighting them in court. Ultimately, this week’s decision finally formalizes what had already been widely felt: Title IX, once a groundbreaking anti-discrimination law, is now a cudgel that the administration can use at will for political purposes.
The news is not shocking. Under McMahon’s leadership, the Department of Education gutted its enforcement division, which had enforced Title IX and other civil rights laws for decades under both Democratic and Republican presidencies. In recent years, the federal agency has widely used this landmark law to attack schools that allowed trans girls and women to compete in sports.
This is not something the administration is hiding; in fact, he brags about it. The department’s press release announcing the repeal of the Biden-era law ends by listing all the steps it has taken to end “harm to women and girls by restoring Title IX to its original meaning and intent.” The vast majority of cases recorded concern trans students.
“As the administration illegally erodes protections for trans students under the guise of ‘protecting women and girls,’ it is systematically weakening the very laws that keep students safe and schools accountable,” Shiwali Patel, senior director of educational justice at the National Women’s Law Center, said in a statement. “’Protecting women and girls’ means not limiting Title IX protections based on students’ reproductive characteristics and anatomy and enforcing Title IX to ensure that schools are inclusive spaces that provide equal educational opportunity for all. all students.”
In fact, the Trump administration announced the same week that one of the nation’s biggest stories involves a university being sued by a former student who said she was gang raped by multiple members of a fraternity. The former Cornell University student said she reported the gang rape to law enforcement and to Cornell in 2024.
A local prosecutor recently said he thought at the time “criminal charges were not appropriate” based on the woman’s statement, but he would now consider presenting the case to a grand jury. As for Cornell, its student assembly is organizing a public hearing on sexual violence. The assembly issued a statement saying, “If students accused of participating in or witnessing sexual violence received lesser sanctions, Cornell should explain why.” » In contrast, McMahon’s tenure was devoted to how…demonstrate how these disparities are perpetuated and ensure that they persist. If students get a response from Cornell, it will be because of public pressure — a force that even the strongest federal legalese still can’t stop.
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