Education Department Strikes Biden Title IX Rewrite From the Books, Restores 2020 Rule

The Department of Education on Monday formally rescinded the Biden administration’s 2024 Title IX regulation and restored the first Trump administration’s 2020 rule in the Code of Federal Regulations. Secretary Linda McMahon said the action “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.” The final rule is scheduled for the Sept. 29 Federal Register and takes effect on publication. There was no new notice-and-comment period.

The department’s fact sheet said nothing changes in daily practice for students, parents, or teachers. Enforcement of the 2020 regulation has been in place since Jan. 31, 2025, after a federal court vacated the 2024 rule nationwide. Remaining appeals were dismissed last month. Monday’s filing removes the vacated text from the Code so schools can see which regulation is actually in force. Title IX, enacted in 1972, bars sex discrimination in education programs that receive federal money. The 2024 rule treated “sex” as including sexual orientation and gender identity and tightened some campus-harassment procedures. Multiple courts blocked or vacated that rewrite. The department said eight federal courts enjoined it and two vacated it.

The restored 2020 regulation requires live hearings and cross-examination in many higher-education sexual-misconduct cases and gives accused students the right to an adviser and to present witnesses. It does not itself define “sex” as biological male or female. McMahon previewed Monday’s filing on a Fox sports program Sunday, saying the administration was making a “full return” to the first-term rule: “It was boys in boys’ sports and girls in girls’ sports.” A separate amendment still on the regulatory agenda would state that Title IX “shall refer exclusively to an individual’s immutable biological classification as either male or female.” That text has not been published. President Trump’s January 2025 executive order already directed agencies to treat sex as binary and biological. In June the Supreme Court held that states may limit girls’ and women’s teams to biological females.

The Office for Civil Rights has been applying that framework in investigations and resolution agreements. The department cited deals with the University of Pennsylvania and Wagner College requiring sex-separated sports and facilities, restoration of titles taken by male athletes, and apologies to female competitors. OCR has opened cases against districts alleged to have put males in girls’ sports or locker rooms and has rescinded earlier Biden-era agreements that treated “misgendering” as a Title IX violation. National LGBTQ Task Force communications director Cathy Renna said the recodification “has weakened protections for all students, especially trans students, women and girls, and those who experience sexual harassment or sexual assault.” McMahon said the published Code now matches what courts already required and what the department has been enforcing for 20 months.