The Department of Education formally rescinded Biden-era Title IX rules that extended discrimination protections to students based on sexual orientation and gender identity.
The department reinstated regulations initially written during President Donald Trump’s first term, according to a Sept. 28 announcement. Though only made official this week, the federal government has been informally enforcing the rollback since Trump’s return to the Oval Office in January 2025.
“The Biden Administration’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) pushed schools across the country to illegally allow males to intrude into women’s sports and intimate facilities, and it investigated school staff for using incorrect pronouns or failing to ask students to declare a preferred gender,” an Education Department press release read.
A request for comment was left with the University.
Education Department spokesman Sabin Sidney wrote in a statement that the department had repealed the rule “only after every federal court that heard legal challenges rejected it as unlawful.”
“The Trump Administration is restoring the original promise of Title IX and providing clarity to students, parents, and educational institutions,” Sidney added. “We will vigorously defend equal opportunity consistent with the law’s intended purpose.”
Trump graduated from the Wharton School in 1968 with a bachelor’s degree in economics.
Former President and Benjamin Franklin Presidential Practice Professor Joe Biden’s interpretation, which was finalized in April 2024, broadened the scope of Title IX — the 1972 law prohibiting sex discrimination in educational programs that receive federal funding.
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The Biden-era rules required that schools allow transgender, nonbinary, and intersex students to use bathrooms and participate in sports consistent with their gender identity and prevented schools from requiring medical inquiries or significant documentation to confirm a student’s gender. The policies also expanded schools’ responsibilities to address instances of sexual harassment.
“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,” Secretary of Education Linda McMahon wrote in the release.
She 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.”
According to an Education Department fact sheet, students, teachers, and parents will not see practical changes as a result of the move. The new rule, the fact sheet read, will allow them to “easily identify the Title IX regulations that are actually in effect.”
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Senior reporter Lavanya Mani covers legal affairs and can be reached at mani@thedp.com. At Penn, she studies comparative literature. Follow her on X @LavanyaMani_.
