Trump administration finalizes repeal of Biden-era Title IX rule
Por Bianca Quilantan — POLITICO – TOP Stories
Education Secretary Linda McMahon on Monday unveiled a final regulation that seeks to restore a rule on how sexual misconduct is investigated on college campuses.
The final rule, which is expected to officially publish Tuesday, comes after federal courts vacated a Biden administration regulation that sought to strengthen discrimination protections based on sexual orientation and gender identity.
The rule stops short of defining “sex” in Title IX, the federal education law barring sex discrimination, as biological sex. But the Education Department’s preamble repeatedly highlights court decisions that struck down the Biden-era rule over its protection for gender identity and sexual orientation.
The final regulation is the Trump administration’s effort to clean up the regulatory books to formally repeal the Biden-era rule and re-implement the first Trump administration’s rule on Title IX, which mandated how schools must respond to reports of sexual misconduct through a formal process.
That included requiring colleges to respond to formal complaints with courtroom-like hearings and allowing representatives for alleged offenders and survivors to call witnesses, challenge their credibility and assess evidence. The rule also changed the government’s definition of sexual harassment and allowed schools to use a higher standard of proof in campus disciplinary proceedings compared to the Obama-era guidance.
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.
But the move could see legal pushback for not going through the notice and comment process that has been typical when the agency has revised its interpretation and enforcement of Title IX. Under the first Trump administration, former Education Secretary Betsy DeVos’ Title IX rule received more than 100,000 comments through the rulemaking process, and former Education Secretary Miguel Cardona’s regulation received nearly three times that.
Education advocates have said they did not receive any clarity on what the regulation was seeking to accomplish throughout the course of the review conducted by the White House’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs.
Additionally, there are several other final regulations in the unified agenda, a governmentwide 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 Education Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment. But McMahon told Fox News’ “OutKick” that the rule is “a full return to Title IX.”
“It’s exactly how we enforce Title IX,” McMahon said in a video released 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.”
“It just gives clarification to students, teachers, schools, parents — everyone now knows what the rule is and how everyone is going to abide by it,” she added.
Fonte: POLITICO – TOP Stories
