The Biden administration’s overhaul of Title IX met with pushback today from lawmakers in favor of preserving female-only spaces.
Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.) speaks during a House Committee on Oversight and Reform hearing
Among the dissenters was Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.), who serves as the Education and the Workforce Committee Chair. Ms. Foxx asserted that the Department of Education’s final Title IX rule puts a radical agenda of left-wing ideologues over the safety of women and girls.
“The Department of Education has placed Title IX, and the decades of advancement and protections for women and girls that it has yielded, squarely on the chopping block,” Ms. Foxx said in a press release from the committee.
On April 19, the rule overhauling Title IX was finalized by the Biden administration. As a result, universities and colleges nationwide have only a few months to revise their policies regarding the handling of sex discrimination complaints in light of the expanded definition of sex.
The Title IX Act, which is federal legislation, explicitly forbids any form of sex discrimination in funded educational programs or activities, including sexual harassment and sexual violence.
The new rule defines sexual harassment as including harassment based on sex stereotypes, sex characteristics, pregnancy, sexual orientation, and gender identity.
In her castigation of the changes, Ms. Foxx went on to say:
“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. Evidently, the acceptance of biological reality and the faithful implementation of the law are just pills too big for the Department to swallow—and it shows.”
According to the U.S. Department of Education, this redefining of sex is intended to be in accordance with the logic of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in the case of Bostock v. Clayton County, which was issued in 2020. In that case, a child welfare worker was purportedly terminated after his employer discovered that he was gay.
In its decision, which was reached by a vote of 6–3, the Supreme Court provided a broad interpretation of Title VII, the federal law that prohibits sex discrimination in the workplace. The court came to the conclusion that it is unconstitutional to take into consideration sexual orientation and gender identity when making employment choices.
U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona said in an April 19 press release, announcing the change:
“For more than 50 years, Title IX has promised an equal opportunity to learn and thrive in our nation’s schools free from sex discrimination.
“These final regulations build on the legacy of Title IX by clarifying that all our nation’s students can access schools that are safe, welcoming, and respect their rights.”
On his first day in office, President Joe Biden issued a comprehensive executive order that directed all federal agencies to apply the Bostock framework to all of their operations, including Title IX enforcement. This was despite the fact that Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote in the majority opinion that Bostock would only narrowly apply to Title VII.
“Children should be able to learn without worrying about whether they will be denied access to the restroom, the locker room, or school sports,” President Biden’s day-one order stated.
“Adults should be able to earn a living and pursue a vocation knowing that they will not be fired, demoted, or mistreated because of whom they go home to or because how they dress does not conform to sex-based stereotypes.”
The department’s new rule does not address the issue of transgender athletes competing in high school and college sports, which is now the subject of a rule-making process that is still ongoing. It is considered improbable that a comprehensive sports rule will be established before the general election later this year.
The White House did not immediately respond to The Epoch Times’s request for comment.
