The District ratified a provision to revert to President Donald Trump’s 2020 Title IX policies for all sex discrimination procedures regarding students and staff, vacating former President Joe Biden’s 2024 procedures, on Feb. 11.
Trump’s 2020 Final Rule narrowed what qualified as sexual harassment and lowered expectations for handling sexual misconduct cases in schools. Now, with Trump back in office, these policies have been reinstated for all high schools nationwide.
The Department of Education sent out a letter on Feb. 4 outlining the repeal of the 2024 Final Rule enacted by Biden and mandated that all ongoing Title IX investigations are to be handled under 2020 Title IX regulations.
Additionally, Trump’s policies changed guidelines for handling sexual misconduct cases from expecting schools to take “prompt and effective action” to responding in a way that is not “deliberately indifferent.” Although Biden’s Title IX rules have been enacted for just under five months—in comparison to Trump establishing them within his first month during presidency—the change in regulation poses a shift for students’ accessibility to Title IX help.
A federal judge in Kentucky struck down Biden’s policy nationwide and brought back the provisions made by then-Education Secretary Betsy DeVos on Jan. 9. These procedures were met with complaints of “favoring the accused” through the authorization of cross-examinations from both parties during investigations and implicitly discouraging victims from speaking out.
Villanova Law Professor Ann Juliano explained that the transition many schools will undergo in response to the federal changes will impact school administrations’ handling of Title IX cases.
“Under Biden’s Title IX policies, schools had an obligation to proactively change the school culture, to go out and try and stop sexual assault,” she said. “The Trump administration has made it clear that schools just have to be reactive.”
The 2020 Rule also implemented multiple changes that make it significantly harder for students to file complaints and receive support from their schools. The policy raised the threshold for what can be reported as sexual assault by holding schools responsible for only reporting incidents with “clear and convincing evidence” instead of a “preponderance of evidence.”
Additionally, schools no longer have to address what Biden’s policy called “hostile environments.” Instead, reports are now limited to explicit cases of sexual assault that occur on campus or in locations where the school exercises “substantial control” over both the respondent and the accused.
Jarrett Dooley, one of the District’s Title IX Coordinators, claimed that the District will continue to “provide consistent training to its Title IX Coordinators and those involved in the Title IX grievance procedure.”
“Students who brought forth complaints under the 2024 Title IX regulations will still have their complaints addressed, it just might be under either the 2020 Title IX regulations or another District policy altogether,” he said.
The Title IX definition of sexual harassment has also shrunk to only apply to situations where it is considered “so severe, pervasive, and objectively offensive that it denies its victims equal access to education.”
Even under Biden’s Title IX regulations, students experienced difficulties with M-A’s sexual assault reporting system. With the possible adoption of even harsher rules, students’ reports are more prone to being dismissed.
“It really reigns in what schools need to do to try and stop sexual assault. So, it can completely change the atmosphere of schools,” Juliano added.
Trump signed an executive order on Feb. 5 prohibiting transgender women athletes from competing in women’s sports, repealing Biden’s regulation that provided protections for LGBTQ+ students. This order subsumes high school and college sports and threatens to change politics in larger athletic governing bodies, including the National Collegiate Athletic Association and the Olympics.
Trump’s order remains under consideration by California’s Interscholastic Federation, also known as the CIF, which stated that the organization will continue to follow state law instead. California state law allows athletes to compete on sports teams aligned with their gender identity.
California Governor Gavin Newson made a break from his past support of LGBTQ+ rights in a recent appearance on the Charlie Kirk Show, where he made a statement that opposed the involvement of transgender athletes in women’s sports.
“California protects based on gender identity expression, so if that is held to be in conflict with federal law policy, it is unclear how schools will handle this issue,” Juliano said.
“The changes to Title IX do not affect our goals to maintain a safe and healthy campus that is supportive of all our students, they only affect what policy is used to process complaints and what the Title IX procedure looks like,” Dooley said.
