GOP senators challenge Biden Title IX transgender student protections

CORRECTION: A federal judge this week blocked changes to Title IX proposed in 2021 by the Biden administration from taking effect. An earlier version of this story included incorrect information.

More than two dozen Senate Republicans endorsed an effort Wednesday to repeal a Biden administration rule bolstering federal nondiscrimination protections for transgender students. 

The Education Department in April unveiled a final set of sweeping changes to Title IX, the federal civil rights law preventing sex discrimination in schools and education programs that receive government funding. The new rule covers discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity for the first time, an addition praised by LGBTQ rights advocates and panned by conservatives. 

The administration’s Title IX revamp would also strengthen nondiscrimination protections for pregnant students and makes changes to how schools handle claims of sexual misconduct. 

A Texas federal judge on Tuesday blocked similar changes to Title IX proposed by the Biden administration in 2021. Judge Reed O’Connor in his decision accused President Biden and the Education Department of pushing “an agenda wholly divorced from the text, structure, and contemporary context of Title IX.”

Lawsuits challenging the new regulations have cropped up across the country, largely in conservative jurisdictions.

On Wednesday, 35 Senate Republicans co-sponsored a disapproval resolution looking to reverse the new rule, after more than 60 House Republicans filed an identical resolution last week. 

“President Biden’s Title IX regulation stretches the law beyond reason, ignores basic biological facts, and infringes on the rights of parents and teachers,” Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-Miss.), who is leading the joint resolution in the Senate, said Wednesday in a statement. 

The Education Department declined to comment on the resolution, saying it does not comment on pending legislation. 

Senators said Wednesday their opposition to the latest update to Title IX centers on a concern that the new regulations will allow transgender women and girls to compete on female school sports teams, invalidating laws passed in 24 states that prohibit transgender student-athletes from competing in accordance with their gender identity. 

Enforcement of at least four such laws — in Arizona, Idaho, West Virginia and Utah — are blocked by federal court orders, according to the Movement Advancement Project, a nonprofit organization that tracks LGBTQ laws. 

The Biden administration has yet to finalize a separate rule governing athletics eligibility, however. The proposal unveiled by the Education Department last year would prohibit schools from enacting policies that categorically ban transgender student-athletes from sports teams that match their gender identity, with some exceptions. 

Senate Republicans on Wednesday added that the disapproval resolution is a response to worries that the administration’s Title IX changes threaten free speech and hurt due process protections for students accused of sexual harassment. Title IX regulations instituted in 2020 under former President Trump bolstered the rights of individuals accused of misconduct. 

While Title IX is a federal law, each administration takes a different approach to enforcing its regulations, which schools are then required to follow as a condition of receiving funding from the government. Trump last month vowed to reverse the Biden administration’s rule “on day one” of his presidency if he is reelected in November.