On Thursday, The Biden administration officially proposed extending Title IX’s protections to transgender students, no longer a measure meant to protect women but also any biological sex who identifies otherwise.
The proposed changes would expand protections against discrimination based on sex under Title IX of the 1972 Education Amendments to include “sexual orientation” and “gender identity,” according to a DOE press release.
The department proposed the Title IX change on the 50th anniversary of the civil rights law, which bars schools that receive federal funding from discriminating based on sex.
“Over the last 50 years, Title IX has paved the way for millions of girls and women to access equal opportunity in our nation’s schools and has been instrumental in combating sexual assault and sexual violence in educational settings,” Education Secretary Miguel Cardona said in a statement.
“As we celebrate the 50th Anniversary of this landmark law, our proposed changes will allow us to continue that progress and ensure all our nation’s students – no matter where they live, who they are, or whom they love – can learn, grow, and thrive in school,” Cardona said.
The proposed change will require every sex-separated space, program, building, bathroom, and locker room to accommodate transgender individuals. Sarah Perry of The Heritage Foundation told the Daily Caller in May that the change means that persons “who may feel as though they are women, even though biologically, they are men,” would share the same private space.
The proposed changes could force schools to allow biological males into women’s bathrooms to receive federal funding.
The proposed change would also overhaul how schools handle sexual assault and sexual harassment allegations. The overhaul would end the changes made by the Trump administration, intending to make the process more equitable for accused students.
President Joe Biden has called the Trump administration’s changes “shame and silence survivors” and promised to revise the directives.
In a fact sheet accompanying the proposed change, the administration said the revision will “restore vital protections for students in our nation’s schools which were eroded by controversial regulations implemented during the previous Administration.”
“Those regulations weakened protections for survivors of sexual assault and diminished the promise of an education free from discrimination,” the department said.
Under the new rules, the administration details that using the wrong gender pronouns to address a fellow student or improper use by faculty is considered sexual harassment.
The new rules would roll back constitutional protections for students accused of heinous crimes, including the right to a live hearing to cross-examine their accuser and the witnesses against them. The new rules would allow a “single investigator” model that allows a single person to act as investigator, judge, jury, and executioner.
This revision would also prevent accused students from learning the evidence against them, such as what the accuser and witnesses are explicitly accusing them of doing. It would also allow schools to keep individual testimonies hidden, making it nearly impossible for wrongly accused students to file a lawsuit to protect their civil rights.
The change comes as a blow to biological women, who have been victims of the recent wave of transgender activism. Most notable has been the controversy surrounding Lia Thomas, the male swimmer who identifies as a woman. The change to Title IX will signal the end of a long-held provision that designates certain rights to biological women.