The Education Department's final rule removes Biden-era Title IX provisions struck down in court and restores the 2020 framework, drawing praise from conservatives and warnings from survivor advocates.
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| Education Secretary Linda McMahon speaks during a formal education policy announcement. |
The Trump administration said Monday that it has finalized a regulation rescinding the Biden administration's Title IX rule and restoring the version adopted during President Donald Trump's first term. Education Secretary Linda McMahon announced the change, which is expected to be formally published in the federal rulebook Tuesday.
Title IX is the federal law that bars sex discrimination in education programs that receive federal funding. The Biden-era rule had expanded protections to cover sexual orientation and gender identity, but federal courts vacated it. The new regulation removes that language from the books and returns to the earlier text.
What the rule does
According to the Education Department, the rule is largely a cleanup measure. An agency fact sheet says it does not reflect any new policy decisions. The rule also stops short of defining "sex" as biological sex in the regulation. Other pending regulations on the government's unified agenda, which lists planned rulemakings, would do that in response to an executive order from Trump.
The department has been enforcing the first Trump administration's Title IX regulation through guidance for nearly two years, and has said it enforces the law on the basis of biological sex. The department's preamble to the new rule repeatedly cites the court decisions that struck down the Biden version over its gender identity and sexual orientation protections.
McMahon said in a statement that the action "faithfully reflect[s] court orders and congressional intent," reducing confusion for parents, students and schools. She added that the department will continue to hold accountable any school or college that violates the rights, privacy or athletic opportunities of women and girls. In a video released over the weekend, she described the rule as "a full return to Title IX."
How campus misconduct cases are handled
The reinstated 2020 rule sets out how schools must respond to reports of sexual misconduct. It requires colleges to handle formal complaints through a process that includes live, courtroom-style hearings. Representatives for both the accused and the survivor can call witnesses, challenge credibility and evaluate evidence. The rule also uses a different definition of sexual harassment than the Biden version and lets schools apply a higher standard of proof in disciplinary proceedings than Obama-era guidance had allowed.
Advocates for survivors say the change reaches well beyond LGBTQ protections. They point out that the Biden rule replaced the narrower harassment definition from Trump's first term. It also ended the requirement that schools investigate only incidents reported on their campuses, instead directing educators to investigate allegations tied to school events or activities whether or not they happened on campus. The Biden rules also let schools use a "preponderance of evidence" standard, meaning administrators could decide whether misconduct was more likely than not to have occurred.
Reaction from both sides
Shiwali Patel, senior director of education justice at the National Women's Law Center, said the administration is "unlawfully eroding protections for trans students under the guise of 'protecting women and girls.'" She argued that the administration is weakening the laws that keep students safe and hold schools accountable. Survivor advocates have also argued that Trump administration policies have discouraged reporting on campus and added hurdles to the complaint process.
Conservative groups welcomed the rule. Bob Eitel, president of the Defense of Freedom Institute, who helped write the original sexual misconduct regulation, said the Biden rule "deserved the gutting that it received in the courts."
Possible legal challenge
The move could face legal pushback because the department did not use the notice-and-comment process that typically accompanies changes to how it interprets and enforces Title IX. That process gathers public input before a rule takes effect. Former Education Secretary Betsy DeVos' rule drew more than 100,000 comments during Trump's first term, and the Biden administration's regulation, developed over three years, received about 240,000.
Education advocates have also said they were given no clear picture of what the regulation was meant to accomplish while it was under review by the White House's Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs.
The rule is expected to be published Tuesday. Additional final regulations on the government's agenda would separately address how sex is defined under Title IX.
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