The U.S. Department of Education released its final Title IX regulation last Friday (1). Slated to go into effect on August 1, 2024, the controversial regulation will change the definition of sex to include “gender identity.” The policy is expected to have far-reaching effects on
campus due process, free speech, gender transitioning of youth, parental rights, and women’s sports (2).
Within hours of the federal rule-making announcement, ConservativeHQ.com and some 42 other conservative organizations and numerous conservative leaders voiced strong opposition:
House Education and the Workforce Committee Chairwoman Virginia Foxx commented, “This final rule dumps kerosene on the already raging fire that is Democrats’ contemptuous culture war that aims to radically redefine sex and gender. The rule also undermines existing due process rights, placing students and institutions in legal jeopardy and again undermining the protections Title IX is intended to provide” (3).
Former Education Secretary Betsy DeVos stated, “The Biden Administration’s radical rewrite of Title IX guts the half century of protections and opportunities for women and callously replaces them with radical gender theory, as Biden’s far-left political base demanded. This regulation is an assault on women and girls” (4).
Numerous individuals have called for the abolition of the Department of Education, including Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, and former candidates Ron DeSantis and Vivek Ramaswamy. H.R. 899, introduced by Rep. Thomas Massie, likewise calls for the abolition of the Department (5).
The Heritage Foundation has released a detailed plan for the elimination of the Department of Education (6).
In response to the release of the final rule, the following 43 members of the Title IX Network issued the following statements:
1. AFA Action: “Force and fraud are necessary to convince a people to believe lies, and the Biden administration has doubled down on both with this Title IX rewrite that will hurt real women and undermine the basic and natural distinctions between the sexes.”
2. Alexander Hamilton Institute for the Study of Western Civilization: "President Biden's changes to Title IX is a road map to confusion and injustice. DOE, in its current incarnation, has outlived its usefulness and needs to be abolished."
3. Alliance Defending Freedom: “The Biden administration’s radical redefinition of sex turns back the clock on equal opportunity for women, threatens student safety and privacy, and undermines fairness in women’s sports.”
4. AMAC Action: "Title IX’s protection of women and girls to participate in female athletic programs would in effect ‘be denied the benefits’ of such programs by allowing a person whose sex is male to participate in athletic programs or activities that are designated for women or girls.”
5. American Association of Christian Schools: “We are disappointed but not surprised that the radical Biden administration ignored the legitimate concerns of millions of American citizens regarding the politically driven rewrite of Title IX and the dangerous reinterpretation of the natural distinctions between men and women.”
6. American Association of Evangelicals: “The Biden Administration’s deceptive assault on truth and Title IX harms women, families, and our nation.”
7. Americans for Limited Government: “The Department of Education’s newest regulation is a direct attack on Title IX which is directly responsible for the opportunity provided to Caitlin Clark, Angel Reese and Riley Gaines among hundreds of thousands of other women to get a college education with an athletic scholarship.”
8. American Life & Liberty: "American Life & Liberty stands against the deliberate, abhorrent actions by both Biden and Department of Education's Title IX decision that places the children they are obliged to protect into direct danger."
9. American Values: “With this extreme redefinition of Title IX, the Biden/Harris administration has just declared war on women, threatening their privacy and safety.”
10. Awake Americans: “The Title IX amendments will nullify the protections of female students and athletes and it’s clear that our daughters aren’t safe in Biden’s America.”
11. Awake Illinois: “As tragic as it is to battle against some of the most anti-child, anti-parent policies in Illinois, it’s even more devastating to see the war on female students and athletes being waged now at the federal level.”
12. Center for Equal Opportunity: “The Center for Equal Opportunity opposes the inclusion of ‘gender identity’ as a prohibited category of sex discrimination under Title IX, one never intended by the legislation’s original meaning and outside the authority of the Department of Education to modify without action by Congress.”
13. Center for Military Readiness: “Violations of personal privacy in environments involving forced intimacy are disruptive and demoralizing for women in any environment, but especially in the military.”
14. Child Protection League: “State legislatures, Governors, and Attorneys General must refuse the federal dictates that assault children with false, dangerous, and radical gender ideology and that rob women and girls of their right to safety and privacy.”
15. Citizens for Renewing America: “The Biden administration is weaponizing woke critical gender theory to erase women from existence and to compel speech from an increasingly larger segment of society, soon to include even our nation’s troops.”
16. Concerned Women for America Legislative Action Committee: “Female students are being assaulted in school restrooms; female athletes are forced to surrender their privacy in the locker rooms and have their opportunities and achievements stolen in their own sports.”
17. ConservativeHQ: “Biden's latest assault on America's women and girls will not stand unchallenged. We have no intention of being told by Democrats that we must indulge the fantasies of mentally ill people who think that they can force us to call them by their ‘preferred pronouns.’"
18. Defense of Freedom Institute: “President Biden’s new Title IX rule is a textbook example of how extremists in the administration have hijacked the law to force radical changes in American society through its schools, colleges, and universities.”
19. Eagle Forum: “While the Biden Administration has punted on clarifying the impact of their redefinition of sex to sports, there is no doubt these regulations will undermine women’s and girls’ privacy rights, athletic prospects, and educational opportunities.”
20. Eagle Forum of Alabama: “While saying out of one side of its mouth that it must follow science, this administration with its new Title IX Regulation redefines the scientific definition of male and female to suit its radical agenda.”
21. Families Advocating for Campus Equality: “FACE is deeply disheartened to see this Administration roll back crucial due process protections that Americans believe everyone is entitled to, and that will inevitably lead to more false accusations, more unjust findings of responsibility, and more lawsuits.”
22. First Liberty Institute: “The Biden administration’s new rule puts thousands of students and teachers with religious beliefs that disagree with the Left’s definitions of sex and gender at risk.”
23. Girls Deserve Privacy: "The revised Title IX regulations threaten the safety of girls and women who will be forced to share private spaces with biological males."
24. Greenwich Patriots: “All of the battles women have fought to achieve equality with men are being erased by the Biden Administration, which apparently thinks men make better women than women.”
25. Heritage Foundation: “It’s an exceptional feat for an executive agency to publish a rule that simultaneously manages to violate constitutional law, civil rights law, and administrative law, but the Department of Education has managed to do it with its patently illegal Title IX.”
26. Independent Women’s Forum: IWF is “preparing to sue the Biden administration to enjoin this unlawful action.”
27. Katartismos Global: "Katartismos Global is anchored in reality – the reality of men and women – and as a Christian ministry, we denounce these devastating changes to Title IX, dangerous to the identity bestowed upon every girl and boy by a loving and all-wise God."
28. Law Offices of Barry S. Jacobson: "These proposed revisions are a testament to a process not only devoid of any concept of fundamental fairness and due process protections afforded to the accused, but of a systematic program that is an attack and an affront to the principles of American jurisprudence."
29. Law Offices of Philip A. Blyer: “The Biden Administration’s omnibus Title IX regulation is an alarming unconstitutional abuse of executive power aimed at enforcing by bureaucratic fiat, totally alien to our constitutional republic, a radical re-definition of Title IX without congressional legislation.”
30. Less Government: “Title IX will now mandate that men can dominate women and this seems fair like just what its authors had in mind.”
31. Middle Resolution: "The changes made by the President to Title IX are designed to eliminate the differences between men and women, which is effectively a direct blow to women’s rights."
32. Mission America: “The Biden administration’s unauthorized invention of law will have far-reaching, harmful effects in the lives of America’s children."
33. Moms for Liberty, Harford County, MD: “Biden hates girls, women, parents, free speech, due process, and America.”
34. National Association of Scholars: “Congress never intended Title IX to become a weapon of fringe sexual politics and a due process disaster. But that’s what the Biden Administration is making it.”
35. Palm Beach Freedom Institute: “These intrusive new rules are so absurd that the time has come to abolish the wasteful Department of Education, which has from its unconstitutional inception done nothing but harm students and learning in America.”
36. Parents on the Level: "Protecting the family worldview in regard to our Creator is our highest priority."
37. Rhode Island Center for Freedom & Prosperity: "The Left's assault on American families continues and every candidate this year must be asked to go on record to log their support or opposition to this egregious destruction of Title IX."
38. Salt & Light Council: “Biological women have a right to demand respect, privacy, and autonomy for their God-given birthright.”
39. 60 Plus Association: “Women sports are important to universities and young women in general, and they should not be worried about young men playing against them as so-called girls, or using their locker rooms and showers.”
40. Tennessee Eagle Forum: “The proposed Title IX regulation contributes to the transformation of America’s families, including the blurring of the important distinction between male and female, husband and wife.”
41. Texas Eagle Forum: “The Biden Administration's Title IX rewrite not only erases equal opportunity for women in education, it is the unconstitutional taking of free speech, due process, and parental rights, among other constitutionally guaranteed rights.”
42. Texas Values: “We will fight this re-write of Title IX every step of the way in Texas.”
43. Utah Citizens for the Constitution: “The Constitution delegates no power to the federal government in regard to education; in light of these radical changes to Title IX, it is time for states to take control of their education systems.”
Citations:
https://titleixforall.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Unofficial-version-of-the-final-regulations.pdf
https://www.saveservices.org/2022-policy/network/
https://edworkforce.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=410473
https://www.saveservices.org/2022-policy/abolish-doe/
https://www.saveservices.org/2023/07/plan-to-abolish-or-overhaul-the-u-s-department-of-education/
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Department of Education Office for Civil Rights
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Catherine Lhamon
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Title IX regulation
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Assistant Education Secretary Catherine Lhamon
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Gender identity
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definition of sex
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definition of sexual harrassment
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14th Amendment due process
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Independent and impartial investigations
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Unrestricted access to evidence
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Right to a live hearing and cross-examination
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Women's sports