Updated: This article has been updated to reflect legal developments affecting former President Joe Biden’s revision to Title IX regulations.
Corrected: This story has been updated to correct the spelling of Elizabeth Tang’s last name and the state where Clayton County is located.
Title IX, the landmark federal law prohibiting sex discrimination in schools, has been in a state of flux over the past year—but has also changed with each presidential administration stretching back to Barack Obama’s tenure in the White House.
Former President Joe Biden’s administration in 2024 officially made its mark on Title IX with a revision to the law’s regulations—only to see it temporarily invalidated in 26 states before a federal judge struck it down for good in January 2025, during Biden’s final days in office.
Biden wasn’t the first president to rewrite regulations implementing the historic law or change how it’s enforced. Title IX has been an easy place for presidents in the recent past to flex their political muscle on education and make value statements about the rights of women and LGBTQ+ people in educational settings.
In the Biden administration’s case, the latest revision strengthened the rights of LGBTQ+ students and staff. The revised rule explicitly stated that schools could not discriminate against students based on sexuality or gender identity.
Before releasing the revised regulation, the U.S. Department of Education under Biden had already interpreted Title IX to prohibit discrimination based on sexuality and gender identity, based on a 2020 Supreme Court ruling in Bostock v. Clayton County, Ga., that found that federal employment law prohibits discrimination based on gender identity and sexuality. The official rule made that explicit under Title IX without room for interpretation.
The administration proposed, but later withdrew, a separate Title IX rule that would have prohibited schools from banning all transgender students from joining school athletic teams that align with their gender identity.
The change, however, set off a flurry of lawsuits against the Education Department from 26 Republican-led states, conservative advocacy organizations, and some school districts that argued, among other points, that the rule violated women’s rights. By allowing nonbinary and transgender people to benefit from Title IX protections, the lawsuits argued, the department was stripping away protections from cisgender women.
All 26 states, plus individual schools elsewhere, successfully paused enforcement of the new regulation through legal challenges before District Judge Danny Reeves finally invalidated it. Meanwhile, President Donald Trump pledged on the campaign trail to undo Biden’s Title IX revision on his first day in office.
Though Reeves, the federal judge, beat the president to that, Trump still issued executive actions on his first day that sent the message that his administration wouldn’t be extending Title IX protections to guard against discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.
While the scope of Title IX for the time being is clear, educators can still bet on changes to Title IX as the Trump administration formalizes its policies. Read on for more on the background of Title IX, misconceptions about the law, its day-to-day application in schools, and how it’s enforced.
What is Title IX?
Rep. Patsy Mink, D-Hawaii, was the major sponsor and author of Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, which Congress passed and President Richard Nixon signed into law that year. Following her death in 2002, the law was renamed the Patsy T. Mink Equal Opportunity in Education Act.
The law states that “no person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.”
It was the first law to enshrine protections against sex discrimination in schools and forced many schools to establish equal opportunities for both girls and boys in sports and other educational programs.
The law states that “no person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.”
It was the first law to enshrine protections against sex discrimination in schools and forced many schools to establish equal opportunities for both girls and boys in sports and other educational programs.
How does Title IX apply to K-12 schools?
A common misconception about Title IX is that it only applies to colleges and universities, said Elizabeth Tang, senior counsel for education and workforce at the National Women’s Law Center, a nonprofit that advocates for equal rights for women and LGBTQ+ people.
In actuality, the law applies to any entity that receives federal funding and operates an educational program, including K-12 schools, museums, libraries, and prisons.
“That includes public school districts, charter schools, which are also public schools, as well as any private K-12 schools that might receive any form of federal funds whether through a school lunch program that receives funding or maybe funding through books or curriculum,” Tang said.
For example, if a private school received Paycheck Protection Program loans during the pandemic, it would be obligated to follow Title IX until those loans are forgiven or repaid, Tang said.
People also commonly think Title IX only applies to athletics, Tang said. In reality, it applies to any educational function.
That means schools can’t prohibit girls from participating in non-athletic programs like debate or robotics clubs. It also prohibits schools from establishing single-gender classes in which one gender receives a better education and superior resources.
“It’s so much broader than athletics,” Tang said. “It also prohibits sex-based harassment, which includes sexual assault and dating violence, in schools and requires schools to address those. It prohibits discrimination against pregnant students and students who are parenting. It prohibits discrimination against LGBTQI+ students.”
In actuality, the law applies to any entity that receives federal funding and operates an educational program, including K-12 schools, museums, libraries, and prisons.
“That includes public school districts, charter schools, which are also public schools, as well as any private K-12 schools that might receive any form of federal funds whether through a school lunch program that receives funding or maybe funding through books or curriculum,” Tang said.
For example, if a private school received Paycheck Protection Program loans during the pandemic, it would be obligated to follow Title IX until those loans are forgiven or repaid, Tang said.
People also commonly think Title IX only applies to athletics, Tang said. In reality, it applies to any educational function.
That means schools can’t prohibit girls from participating in non-athletic programs like debate or robotics clubs. It also prohibits schools from establishing single-gender classes in which one gender receives a better education and superior resources.
“It’s so much broader than athletics,” Tang said. “It also prohibits sex-based harassment, which includes sexual assault and dating violence, in schools and requires schools to address those. It prohibits discrimination against pregnant students and students who are parenting. It prohibits discrimination against LGBTQI+ students.”
How has Title IX changed in recent years?
Few laws have been through the yo-yo of presidential politics quite like Title IX, with regulations and the way it’s enforced often changing depending on who occupies the White House.
When it passed in 1972, the law received broad bipartisan support, with a Democratic champion steering it through Congress and a Republican president signing it into law. But recent years have given way to more divided opinions on the law’s reach.
More recent changes to presidential interpretations and regulations have largely had to do with Title IX’s application to gender identity and the processes schools use to investigate and resolve sex discrimination claims.
In 2011, the Education Department’s office for civil rights under the Obama administration released a “dear colleague” letter stating that schools must use a “preponderance of evidence” standard when evaluating harassment or sexual violence complaints under Title IX, enabling institutions to find someone had violated others’ Title IX rights when “it is more likely than not that sexual harassment or violence occurred.” That standard is less strict than a “clear and convincing evidence” standard, which suggests that “it is highly probable or reasonably certain that the sexual harassment or violence occurred,” according to the letter. Schools previously could have used either standard in evaluating whether someone violated a student or staff member’s Title IX rights. Sexual assault victims and their advocates, particularly on college campuses, praised this change.
In that letter, the department also stated that sexual harassment and sex discrimination could constitute a “hostile environment” if it “is sufficiently serious that it interferes with or limits a student’s ability to participate in or benefit from the school’s program.”
Under the Obama-era guidance, harassment or discrimination didn’t have to be repeated for it to be considered to constitute a “hostile environment” as long as it was serious and severe enough. Schools that are found to have allowed a hostile environment are considered to have violated Title IX.
Later in 2016, the Obama administration released another letter saying that schools are obligated under Title IX to provide transgender students with locker rooms and restrooms that align with their gender identity.
The first Trump administration rescinded both of those letters.
In 2017, the Education Department under former Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos released interim guidance that said schools could use either the “preponderance of evidence” or the stricter “clear and convincing” standards when evaluating sex discrimination claims. It also advised schools to return to the Bush-era definition of “hostile environment,” under which harassment would need to happen repeatedly to qualify as creating a hostile environment, regardless of severity.
The Trump administration also rescinded the Obama administration letter regarding Title IX protections for transgender youth. In 2020, the Trump administration finalized its own interpretation of the law through an official revision to the rule.
With the Biden administration, that all changed—again.
In April 2024, the administration released its finalized revision to Title IX, which reverted to the Obama-era definition of a hostile environment, meaning that harassment or discrimination didn’t have to repeatedly occur for it to be considered hostile. It also restored the terms of the Obama-era guidance on resolving sex discrimination claims, requiring that schools use the “preponderance of evidence” standard in evaluating sex discrimination, harassment, and assault claims rather than choosing between that standard and “clear and convincing.”
It also took Obama’s guidance further by explicitly writing into federal regulation that Title IX outlaws discrimination based on a person’s sexuality or gender identity and requiring schools to allow transgender students to use bathrooms that align with their gender identity.
But Republican attorneys general, along with some conservative advocacy groups and school districts, swiftly sued to block the Biden rule. They were successful in winning injunctions that put enforcement of the new rule on hold in their states as well as at some schools elsewhere. Finally, a federal judge in Kentucky in January 2025 struck down the rule in the Biden administration's final days.
Trump pledged throughout his campaign to undo Biden's Title IX rule on his first day in office. While the judge's action had already taken care of that, some of Trump's first-day actions made it clear that his administration would no longer interpret Title IX to prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity.
While the Biden-era rule is no longer in effect, the Trump administration could still develop guidance to inform schools with more specificity about how it plans to interpret Title IX in enforcing the federal law.
When it passed in 1972, the law received broad bipartisan support, with a Democratic champion steering it through Congress and a Republican president signing it into law. But recent years have given way to more divided opinions on the law’s reach.
More recent changes to presidential interpretations and regulations have largely had to do with Title IX’s application to gender identity and the processes schools use to investigate and resolve sex discrimination claims.
In 2011, the Education Department’s office for civil rights under the Obama administration released a “dear colleague” letter stating that schools must use a “preponderance of evidence” standard when evaluating harassment or sexual violence complaints under Title IX, enabling institutions to find someone had violated others’ Title IX rights when “it is more likely than not that sexual harassment or violence occurred.” That standard is less strict than a “clear and convincing evidence” standard, which suggests that “it is highly probable or reasonably certain that the sexual harassment or violence occurred,” according to the letter. Schools previously could have used either standard in evaluating whether someone violated a student or staff member’s Title IX rights. Sexual assault victims and their advocates, particularly on college campuses, praised this change.
In that letter, the department also stated that sexual harassment and sex discrimination could constitute a “hostile environment” if it “is sufficiently serious that it interferes with or limits a student’s ability to participate in or benefit from the school’s program.”
Under the Obama-era guidance, harassment or discrimination didn’t have to be repeated for it to be considered to constitute a “hostile environment” as long as it was serious and severe enough. Schools that are found to have allowed a hostile environment are considered to have violated Title IX.
Later in 2016, the Obama administration released another letter saying that schools are obligated under Title IX to provide transgender students with locker rooms and restrooms that align with their gender identity.
The first Trump administration rescinded both of those letters.
In 2017, the Education Department under former Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos released interim guidance that said schools could use either the “preponderance of evidence” or the stricter “clear and convincing” standards when evaluating sex discrimination claims. It also advised schools to return to the Bush-era definition of “hostile environment,” under which harassment would need to happen repeatedly to qualify as creating a hostile environment, regardless of severity.
The Trump administration also rescinded the Obama administration letter regarding Title IX protections for transgender youth. In 2020, the Trump administration finalized its own interpretation of the law through an official revision to the rule.
With the Biden administration, that all changed—again.
In April 2024, the administration released its finalized revision to Title IX, which reverted to the Obama-era definition of a hostile environment, meaning that harassment or discrimination didn’t have to repeatedly occur for it to be considered hostile. It also restored the terms of the Obama-era guidance on resolving sex discrimination claims, requiring that schools use the “preponderance of evidence” standard in evaluating sex discrimination, harassment, and assault claims rather than choosing between that standard and “clear and convincing.”
It also took Obama’s guidance further by explicitly writing into federal regulation that Title IX outlaws discrimination based on a person’s sexuality or gender identity and requiring schools to allow transgender students to use bathrooms that align with their gender identity.
But Republican attorneys general, along with some conservative advocacy groups and school districts, swiftly sued to block the Biden rule. They were successful in winning injunctions that put enforcement of the new rule on hold in their states as well as at some schools elsewhere. Finally, a federal judge in Kentucky in January 2025 struck down the rule in the Biden administration's final days.
Trump pledged throughout his campaign to undo Biden's Title IX rule on his first day in office. While the judge's action had already taken care of that, some of Trump's first-day actions made it clear that his administration would no longer interpret Title IX to prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity.
While the Biden-era rule is no longer in effect, the Trump administration could still develop guidance to inform schools with more specificity about how it plans to interpret Title IX in enforcing the federal law.
What do schools need to do when there’s a Title IX complaint?
All schools are required to have a process for students and staff to submit a Title IX complaint and a procedure for how the school investigates and resolves it.
School districts must designate a Title IX coordinator, investigator, and decisionmaker. The people in those positions—multiple people can occupy each role—are responsible for steering the complaints through the investigation process.
The Title IX coordinator is also responsible for ensuring all students, staff, and parents understand their rights under Title IX and how they can submit Title IX complaints.
School districts must designate a Title IX coordinator, investigator, and decisionmaker. The people in those positions—multiple people can occupy each role—are responsible for steering the complaints through the investigation process.
The Title IX coordinator is also responsible for ensuring all students, staff, and parents understand their rights under Title IX and how they can submit Title IX complaints.
What happens when a school violates Title IX?
In order for a school to be found in violation of Title IX, the Education Department’s office for civil rights must first investigate, most often prompted by a complaint. At times, the office has launched an investigation without a formal complaint after becoming aware of potential violations through media coverage or other means.
Schools can violate Title IX both through discrimination against students on the basis of sex, sexuality, or gender identity, and by failing to appropriately investigate and respond to sex-discrimination, harassment, or assault complaints from students or staff.
Because Title IX is tied to schools’ receipt of federal funding, the major risk schools run is losing it. But that’s extremely unlikely to happen.
Often when OCR finds that a school has violated the law, it imposes a fine and mandates that the school come into compliance.
Schools can avoid an investigation and potential fine by voluntarily coming into compliance with the law when a complaint is filed, Tang said. Every time OCR decides to investigate a complaint of a Title IX violation, it notifies the school and gives it the ability to come into compliance before it launches the probe.
If OCR determines a school did violate Title IX and it refuses to come into compliance, the office can decide to remove the school’s funding. It’s more common, however for OCR to arrive at settlements with schools and districts that prescribe measures they can take to correct the violations.
Schools can violate Title IX both through discrimination against students on the basis of sex, sexuality, or gender identity, and by failing to appropriately investigate and respond to sex-discrimination, harassment, or assault complaints from students or staff.
Because Title IX is tied to schools’ receipt of federal funding, the major risk schools run is losing it. But that’s extremely unlikely to happen.
Often when OCR finds that a school has violated the law, it imposes a fine and mandates that the school come into compliance.
Schools can avoid an investigation and potential fine by voluntarily coming into compliance with the law when a complaint is filed, Tang said. Every time OCR decides to investigate a complaint of a Title IX violation, it notifies the school and gives it the ability to come into compliance before it launches the probe.
If OCR determines a school did violate Title IX and it refuses to come into compliance, the office can decide to remove the school’s funding. It’s more common, however for OCR to arrive at settlements with schools and districts that prescribe measures they can take to correct the violations.
Why did Biden's new regulation generate so much opposition?
Most of the opposition to the Biden administration’s Title IX rule focused on its inclusion of gender identity in a newly developed definition of sex discrimination. The statutory text passed by Congress doesn’t include definitions for “sex discrimination” or “sex-based harassment,” so the Biden administration defined them in its regulation that it could develop through a prescribed process without approval from Congress.
While LGBTQ+ advocates applauded the administration for including gender identity in the definition, many conservative politicians and parents’ rights advocates said its inclusion violated the rights of cisgender women.
“Gender, according to gender theorists, does not have a stable definition so you are converting something that refers to the way in which you were born, in your biology, to a feeling,” said Jonathan Butcher, an education policy research fellow at The Heritage Foundation, a conservative policy think tank that opposed Biden’s Title IX revision and prioritized restoring Trump-era Title IX regulations in its Project 2025 policy agenda for a conservative president. “That puts women and girls in danger because it allows men in their private spaces and it makes athletics unfair because it allows men to compete against women.”
That argument appeared in lawsuits filed against the Education Department in response to the rule. It was also the basis of more than two dozen state laws and regulations that bar schools from allowing transgender girls to participate in girls’ sports.
“It is clear in the text of Title IX itself, and in the decades-long impact of Title IX, that its enactment was created to apply to two sexes,” Judge Terry Doughty said in his order blocking the rule in Idaho, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Montana. “There is nothing in the text or history of Title IX indicating that the law was meant to apply to anyone other than biological men and/ or biological women.”
That view of gender identity is damaging to transgender and nonbinary youth, Tang said. Federal judges have already blocked state laws in Arizona, Idaho, Utah, and West Virginia barring transgender athletes from participating in sports that align with their gender identity.
“We have seen an unprecedented wave of attacks on LGBTQI+ students, especially on transgender, nonbinary, and intersex youth in the states and at the local level,” Tang said. “They are growing more vicious every day. We’ve also seen federal lawmakers attempt to attack LGBTQI+ youth as well. So these clarified protections for LGBTQI+ students in the federal regulations are very important.”
Despite the focus on transgender athletes and competitive fairness, the number of transgender athletes in school athletics is very small. Only 2 percent of high schoolers identify as transgender, according to a 2019 study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And transgender youth are less likely than their cisgender peers to participate in sports. Nineteen percent of transgender and gender-expansive youth reported playing sports in the Human Rights Campaign's 2022 Youth Survey, compared with nearly half of all high school-age youth.
A review of scientific research on transgender women athletes by E-Alliance, a Canadian organization that advocates for LGBTQ+ youth, found that any biomedical evidence of transgender women's competitive advantage in elite sports was inconclusive. Meanwhile, the review found that there are more influential sociocultural factors that affect athletic performance, including socioeconomics, nutrition, equipment, training opportunities, and coaching salaries.
While LGBTQ+ advocates applauded the administration for including gender identity in the definition, many conservative politicians and parents’ rights advocates said its inclusion violated the rights of cisgender women.
“Gender, according to gender theorists, does not have a stable definition so you are converting something that refers to the way in which you were born, in your biology, to a feeling,” said Jonathan Butcher, an education policy research fellow at The Heritage Foundation, a conservative policy think tank that opposed Biden’s Title IX revision and prioritized restoring Trump-era Title IX regulations in its Project 2025 policy agenda for a conservative president. “That puts women and girls in danger because it allows men in their private spaces and it makes athletics unfair because it allows men to compete against women.”
That argument appeared in lawsuits filed against the Education Department in response to the rule. It was also the basis of more than two dozen state laws and regulations that bar schools from allowing transgender girls to participate in girls’ sports.
“It is clear in the text of Title IX itself, and in the decades-long impact of Title IX, that its enactment was created to apply to two sexes,” Judge Terry Doughty said in his order blocking the rule in Idaho, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Montana. “There is nothing in the text or history of Title IX indicating that the law was meant to apply to anyone other than biological men and/ or biological women.”
That view of gender identity is damaging to transgender and nonbinary youth, Tang said. Federal judges have already blocked state laws in Arizona, Idaho, Utah, and West Virginia barring transgender athletes from participating in sports that align with their gender identity.
“We have seen an unprecedented wave of attacks on LGBTQI+ students, especially on transgender, nonbinary, and intersex youth in the states and at the local level,” Tang said. “They are growing more vicious every day. We’ve also seen federal lawmakers attempt to attack LGBTQI+ youth as well. So these clarified protections for LGBTQI+ students in the federal regulations are very important.”
Despite the focus on transgender athletes and competitive fairness, the number of transgender athletes in school athletics is very small. Only 2 percent of high schoolers identify as transgender, according to a 2019 study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And transgender youth are less likely than their cisgender peers to participate in sports. Nineteen percent of transgender and gender-expansive youth reported playing sports in the Human Rights Campaign's 2022 Youth Survey, compared with nearly half of all high school-age youth.
A review of scientific research on transgender women athletes by E-Alliance, a Canadian organization that advocates for LGBTQ+ youth, found that any biomedical evidence of transgender women's competitive advantage in elite sports was inconclusive. Meanwhile, the review found that there are more influential sociocultural factors that affect athletic performance, including socioeconomics, nutrition, equipment, training opportunities, and coaching salaries.
What’s next for Title IX?
With the Biden administration over and its efforts to revise Title IX regulations dead, the focus turns to what the Trump administration will do.
On his first day in office, on Jan. 20, 2025, Trump signed an executive order making it federal policy to recognize only the male and female sexes. In that order, he directed his attorney general to instruct government agencies that civil rights laws that prohibit discrimination based on sex—such as Title IX, the federal law outlawing sex discrimination at federally funded schools—can’t be expanded to apply to discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity, as the Biden administration had done.
What the U.S. Department of Education does with those instructions remains to be seen. It could follow up with guidance to school districts and colleges informing them of how the Trump administration plans to enforce Title IX when its office for civil rights evaluates complaints made under the 1972 law.
On his first day in office, on Jan. 20, 2025, Trump signed an executive order making it federal policy to recognize only the male and female sexes. In that order, he directed his attorney general to instruct government agencies that civil rights laws that prohibit discrimination based on sex—such as Title IX, the federal law outlawing sex discrimination at federally funded schools—can’t be expanded to apply to discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity, as the Biden administration had done.
What the U.S. Department of Education does with those instructions remains to be seen. It could follow up with guidance to school districts and colleges informing them of how the Trump administration plans to enforce Title IX when its office for civil rights evaluates complaints made under the 1972 law.
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