Trump administration formally rolls back Biden-era Title IX rules in major shift

WASHINGTON, DC: Education Secretary Linda McMahon, on Monday, September 28, announced a new regulation that officially scraps the Biden administration’s 2024 Title IX rules.

In their place, she’s bringing back the policies from Trump’s first term. This decision changes how federally funded schools deal with sex discrimination and sexual harassment complaints. The rule is set to be published on Tuesday. Courts already struck down the Biden-era rules, which had tried to broaden Title IX protections to include sexual orientation and gender identity.

What the new rule does and doesn't do

The rule “clears the Biden Administration’s illegal rewrite of Title IX” from federal regulations and “restores the commonsense language” of the rule adopted during the first Trump administration, which the second administration has been enforcing, McMahon said in a statement.

“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,” she said.

"We’re officially restoring Title IX’s original promise under the Trump Administration’s 2020 rule—bringing back clear, commonsense protections. Girls’ sports are for girls, and boys’ sports are for boys," McMahon wrote on X (formerly Twitter).

The rule stops short of defining “sex” in Title IX, the federal education law barring sex discrimination, as biological sex. An agency fact sheet says the rule does not reflect any new policy decisions.

There are several other final regulations in the unified agenda, a government-wide list of regulatory plans, that also seek to make changes to the anti-sex discrimination law.

This includes formally defining sex as based on biological sex in response to President Donald Trump’s executive order.

The final regulation is the Trump administration’s effort to clean up the regulatory books to formally repeal the Biden-era rule and reimplement the first Trump administration’s rule on Title IX, which mandated how schools must respond to reports of sexual misconduct through a formal process.

Process questions and pushback from advocates

The Education Department has been enforcing the first Trump administration’s Title IX regulation for nearly two years through guidance.

The agency also has said it is enforcing the civil rights law on the basis of biological sex. In its fact sheet, the agency said the rule was necessary “to help eliminate public confusion about the Biden Administration’s unlawful attempt to stretch Title IX’s legal protections to cover ‘sexual orientation’ and ‘gender identity.’”

This move risks legal challenges because it skips the usual notice and comment process that agencies typically follow when they update their interpretation or enforcement of Title IX.

Under the first Trump administration, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos opened her Title IX rule to public input and received over 100,000 comments.

Later, Education Secretary Miguel Cardona’s regulation drew nearly three times as many responses. Skipping that tradition stands out, and it’s likely to draw criticism.

The rule has been criticized by advocates for survivors of misconduct who have argued that Trump policies have chilled reporting of incidents on campus and added hurdles in the complaint process.

“While the administration is unlawfully eroding protections for trans students under the guise of ‘protecting women and girls,’ they are systematically weakening the very laws that keep students safe and schools accountable,” said Shiwali Patel, senior director of education justice at the National Women’s Law Center.

McMahon defended the rule directly in a video posted over the weekend.

“It was boys in boys sports and girls in girls sports, and now the Biden rules and regulations are being rescinded and it is a full return to the Trump administration’s Title IX ruling, as has been upheld by many courts,” she said.