<p class="wp-block-paragraph">The Department of Education rescinded the Biden administration’s 2024 interpretation of Title IX that protected students from sex-based discrimination on the basis of their sexual orientation and gender identity.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Education Secretary Linda McMahon announced the move on Monday after a federal judge struck down the Biden-era regulations last year.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">The department is also reinstating the Title IX rule implemented by the first Trump administration in 2020. At the time, the administration reshaped how schools handle sexual misconduct and harassment.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">“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,” McMahon said in a statement.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">In its press release, the Education Department emphasized how the reinstated rule preserves the integrity of women’s sports — an issue championed by President Donald Trump since he returned to office.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">“Thanks to today’s action, the published Title IX regulations faithfully reflect court orders and Congressional intent—reducing confusion for parents, students, and educational institutions,” McMahon added. “We will continue to relentlessly champion equal opportunity for all Americans and hold accountable any school or college that violates the rights, privacy, or athletic opportunities of our women and girls.”</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Federal courts dismissed all outstanding litigation regarding the Biden-era rule last month, clearing the way for the Education Department to implement the rulemaking change.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Many Republican-led states and conservative groups started challenging the Biden administration’s effort to expand discrimination protections for LGBT students shortly after the revised Title IX rule was released in April 2024.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Sarah Parshall Perry, vice president and senior legal fellow at Defending Education, celebrated the Trump administration’s decision to overturn the prior administration’s gender identity language in favor of the 2020 Title IX rule.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">“Today the Department of Education did something that many of us were eagerly anticipating: it fully rescinded the 2024 Biden era Title IX regulation that elicited no fewer than 10 federal lawsuits, lawsuits in which the Biden administration lost every time,” Perry said. “These losses were unsurprising, considering one of the rule’s many flaws — aside from being a violation of the Spending Clause, First Amendment, and Administrative Procedure Act — was an ultra vires definition of ‘sex’ to include gender identity.”</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">“No one in their right mind thinks that Title IX’s feminist champions meant ‘gender identity’ when they pushed for the law’s passage in 1972,” she continued. “We’re thrilled to see Title IX returned to its rightful, lawful, longstanding interpretation.”</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Perry served as senior counsel in the Education Department’s Office of Civil Rights when the 2020 rule was implemented, and Defending Education was one of the plaintiffs in the litigation against the Biden administration.</p>