The U.S. Department of Education formally rescinded President Joe Biden’s 2024 Title IX regulations, which protected students from discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.
In their place, the department on Sept. 28 formally reinstated 2020 regulations from President Donald Trump’s first administration. The current administration had begun informally enforcing the 2020 regulations in January 2025.
Title IX is a federal law that prohibits sex discrimination in any school or educational program that receives federal funding.
In a statement, Secretary of Education Linda McMahon said the change “restores the commonsense language” of the 2020 regulations.
The 2020 rules had added more due process protections for students accused of sexual harassment. The reinstated rules lacked the explicit anti-
discrimination protections for LGBTQ+ students that the Biden administration attempted to add.
According to the National Women’s Law Center, the department’s move “significantly weakens protections against sexual harassment in education.” Shiwali Patel, the center’s senior director of education justice, pointed in her statement to a widely covered alleged case of sexual assault at Cornell University as “a devastating example of why robust federal Title IX enforcement matters.”
Education Week, Sept. 28