Education Department Rescinds Biden Administration’s Title IX Regulations

The Department of Education announced on Monday its decision to formally eliminate the Title IX regulations established under the Biden administration, reverting to the rules enacted during President Donald Trump’s initial term.

This change will be effective starting Tuesday. According to the finalized rules released on Monday, the Education Department’s anti-discrimination policy will define sex strictly as male or female, reflecting the classification at birth. The new regulations officially eliminate the protections for sexual orientation and gender identity that were extended to students and employees at schools receiving federal funding.

The regulations set to take effect in 2024 had required schools to recognize the preferred pronouns of transgender students and modified the procedures for handling harassment complaints, but these rules were overturned by a federal court in January 2025.

Subsequently, the Education Department indicated it would proceed with enforcing the 2020 regulations. The action taken on Monday codifies this adjustment in the official federal regulations, although schools have already been operating under the earlier set of rules.

The department noted that the last remaining lawsuits concerning the Biden rules were dismissed in August, clearing the path for their formal removal. Education Secretary Linda McMahon remarked that this step aligns the written regulations with court rulings and the practices her department has been upholding since Trump’s return to office:

Today’s rulemaking eliminates the Biden Administration’s unauthorized revision of Title IX from the Code of Federal Regulations and reinstates the straightforward language established during the initial Trump Administration, which we have been enforcing since the beginning. This action ensures that Title IX regulations accurately reflect court decisions and Congressional intent—thereby reducing confusion for parents, students, and educational institutions. We will persist in advocating for equal opportunity for all Americans and holding accountable any school or college that infringes upon the rights, privacy, or sports opportunities of our women and girls.

This regulation is in line with a 2025 executive order from Trump that instructed federal agencies to recognize only male and female as the categories of sex and to apply this definition when enforcing laws related to sex discrimination.