The Trump administration has scrapped a Title IX rule adopted in 2024 to protect LGBTQ students from sexual harassment.
The change was announced Sept. 28 and was to go into effect the next day without public comment.
Title IX is a federal law passed in 1972 against sex discrimination in colleges and other schools that receive funding from the U.S. Department of Education. President Joe Biden expanded the rule to include protections for people targeted for their gender identity or sexual orientation.
But the regulation never went into effect because Biden’s rule faced legal challenges and a federal judge struck down the provision nationwide in January 2025. By the end of that month, the administration unofficially reinstated Title IX rules President Donald Trump instituted in 2020 to narrow definitions of sexual discrimination and to make it more difficult for victims to prove harm in cases of student misconduct.
With this week’s announcement, “Nothing changes in practice for individual students, parents and teachers, the department said in a fact sheet.
U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon warned educational institutions against extending Title IX protections to students based on gender and sexual identity.
“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,” McMahon said. “Thanks to today’s action, the published Title IX regulations faithfully reflect court orders and congressional intent — reducing confusion for parents, students, and educational institutions.”
But LGBTQ and legal rights groups criticized the move for exposing vulnerable students to discrimination.
The Human Rights Campaign described the rule change as an example of the administration’s “long-running obsession with attacking LGBTQ students,” in this case by enabling perpetrators to escape the consequences of harassment.
“Title IX is, quite simply, about protecting students and ensuring they are safe from abuse, harassment and discrimination while they pursue their education. But Donald Trump and his cronies aren’t interested in any of that,” said Kelley Robinson, president of HRC. “Instead of enforcing protections for students, they’re rescinding them. They don’t care if sexual harassment and assault go unaddressed. And they’re happy to strip funding away from school districts and states that are actually trying to keep students safe.
Lambda Legal said the resurrected 2020 rule also narrows when and how schools must respond to reports of sexual assault or harassment and the cross examination of victims in live hearings. The LGTBQ rights organization blasted the administration for implementing the change without a public comment period.
“Lambda Legal has long called this what it is: A dangerous, legally unsound and despicably cruel weaponization of Title IX, and we oppose its return today,” said Lambda Senior Attorney Nicholas Hite. “Title IX exists so every student can learn free from harassment and assault. Yet this rule from the Trump administration lets schools look away until harm becomes severe and pervasive and forces survivors through re-traumatizing courtroom-style cross-examination just to be heard.”