Trump announces end to Biden’s Title IX rewrite promoting gender ideology

President Donald Trump’s administration has announced what it marks as the end of the Biden administration’s attempt to change Title IX to include “gender identity.” 

The announcement came through a Friday “Dear Colleague” letter from Acting Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Craig Trainor addressed to “K-12 schools and institutions of higher education,” as noted in a Department of Education press release. 

The press release announced that “the department’s Office for Civil Rights will enforce the Trump Administration’s 2020 Title IX Rule,” which was in force before being overtaken by former President Joe Biden’s directives. 

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In April, 2024, the Biden administration changed Title IX, which is meant to offer protections for women, in order to include men who claim they “identify” as women. It also eliminated certain due process protections previously put in place by Trump during his first term that were related to sexual harassment accusations. 

Biden’s changes faced widespread legal challenges and opposition throughout the U.S.

The letter specifically mentions a legal challenge posed by the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky, which “expressed the proper textual and original meaning of Title IX, and it correctly repudiated the 2024 Title IX Rule’s [inclusion of protections on the basis of gender ideology].” 

Trainor also addressed Trump’s Jan. 20 executive order, “Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government,” which he called “[e]qually fatal” to Biden’s attempted changes. 

“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,’” the letter states. 

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The press release clarifies that “[t]he department [of Education] will return to enforcing Title IX protections on the basis of biological sex in schools and on campuses. Returning to the 2020 Title IX Rule also ends a serious threat to campus free speech and ensures much stronger due process protections for students during Title IX proceedings.”

When asked for comment, a Department of Education spokesperson pointed Campus Reform to Trainor’s quote in the press release: “The Biden Administration’s failed attempt to rewrite Title IX was an unlawful abuse of regulatory power and an egregious slight to women and girls. Under the Trump Administration, the Education Department will champion equal opportunity for all Americans, including women and girls, by protecting their right to safe and separate facilities and activities in schools, colleges, and universities.”

Campus Reform has reached out to the Department of Education for comment. This article will be updated accordingly.