WASHINGTON — The U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) announced on Friday that it will enforce Title IX under the provisions of the 2020 Title IX Rule, rather than the 2024 Title IX Rule enacted by the Biden Administration, which was scrapped by the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky in early January.
The Dear Colleague letter said OCR officials agreed with the Eastern District of Kentucky’s decision to repudiate the 2024 Title IX Rule’s expanded meaning of “on the basis of sex” to include “gender identity.” As a result, the Trump administration will not be appealing the ruling.
Related Article: 6 Reasons Why Title IX Rules Make K-12 Threat Assessment Teams a Must-Have
Additionally, OCR said open Title IX investigations under the 2024 Title IX Rule should be “immediately reoriented to comport fully with the requirements of the 2020 Title IX Rule.”
Trump Administration Will Only Recognize 2 Sexes: Male and Female
“Equally fatal to the 2024 Title IX Rule, on January 20, 2025, President Trump issued an Executive Order, Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government, that directly contradicts the vacated rule’s novel and expansive meaning of ‘on the basis of sex,’” the letter said. “President Trump ordered all agencies and departments within the Executive Branch to ‘enforce all sex-protective laws to promote [the] reality’ that there are ‘two sexes, male and female,’ and that ‘[t]hese sexes are not changeable and are grounded in fundamental and incontrovertible reality.’ As a constitutional matter, the President’s interpretation of the law governs because he alone controls and supervises subordinate officers who exercise discretionary executive power on his behalf.6 That unified control extends to ED and OCR; therefore, Title IX must be enforced consistent with President Trump’s order.”
OCR’s declaration that there are only two sexes, male and female, is contradicted by studies that have found there is a biological basis for transgender identity.
Additionally, only acknowledging two sexes could have a significant impact on LGBTQ+ student mental health and physical safety. Studies — including a recent study from researchers at New York University — have found that policies that prohibit discrimination based on sexual and gender identity are an effective way to prevent suicide deaths in the U.S. Other studies have found that anti-LGBTQ+ school policies are associated with high rates of LGBTQ+ student depression and suicide attempts.
Related Article: CDC: Over 40% of LGBTQ+ Teens Considered Suicide in Past Year
There is also a link between anti-LGBTQ+ policies and bullying on K-12 campuses. LGBTQ+ students attending schools with at least one anti-LGBTQ+ policy are 24% more likely to be physically attacked due to their LGBTQ+ identity than those attending schools with no anti-LGBTQ+ policies.
Title IX Rule Change Doesn’t Come as a Surprise
Many campus safety experts expected the Trump administration to revert back to the 2020 Title IX rule.
“This announcement isn’t surprising,” said S. Daniel Carter, president of Safety Advisors for Educational Campuses. “We appreciate the relative clarity of understanding what will be expected of institutions going forward. Although what reorienting a school investigation opened under one policy to, presumably, the policy in effect prior to August 2024 would look like for the parties is far from clear.”