Education Secretary Linda McMahon prepares for an interview at the Republican convention Wednesday, Sept. 9, 2026, in Dallas. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
- “We will continue to relentlessly champion equal opportunity for all Americans and hold accountable any school or college that violates the rights, privacy, or athletic opportunities of our women and girls,” said Secretary of Education Linda McMahon.
The U.S. Department of Education announced Monday that it has formally rescinded the Biden administration’s rewrite of the Title IX final rule that broadened the law to prohibit discrimination based on “sex stereotypes, sexual orientation, gender identity, and sex characteristics.”
The original intent of the 1972 law was to give women an equal playing field in educational attainment, particularly at public schools and institutions of higher learning that receive federal financial aid. However, presidential administrations supportive of the LGBTQ movement have attempted to use Title IX to expand protections for people who identify as lesbian, gay or transgender.
The Biden-era regulations faced almost immediate legal challenges across the country and were blocked by eight separate courts.
Among the lawsuits filed challenging the Biden Title IX change was filed in the U.S. District Court in the Southern District of Mississippi by a coalition of 15 states which included Mississippi, Tennessee, Alabama, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Virginia and West Virginia.
READ MORE: Federal judge sides with Mississippi, 14 other states in ruling against Biden-era attempt to broaden Title IX
U.S. District Court Judge Louis Guirola ultimately ruled that the Biden Department of Health and Human Services exceeded its statutory authority when it interpreted Title IX to prohibit discrimination on the basis of gender identity and then implemented regulations concerning gender identity and “gender affirming care.”
No court to consider the legality of the Biden regulations ever deemed them legal, the U.S. Department of Education said Monday.
With appeals in the challenges dismissed and the remaining litigation resolved in August, the U.S. Department of Education decided now was the time to take the final step of formally removing the vacated 2024 rule from the Code of Federal Regulations.
U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon said the latest rulemaking clears the Biden administration’s “illegal rewrite of Title IX from the Code of Federal Regulations and restores the commonsense language promulgated in the first Trump Administration, which we have been enforcing since the first days of the Administration.”
“Thanks to today’s action, the published Title IX regulations faithfully reflects court orders and Congressional intent—reducing confusion for parents, students, and educational institutions,” McMahon said. “We will continue to relentlessly champion equal opportunity for all Americans and hold accountable any school or college that violates the rights, privacy, or athletic opportunities of our women and girls.”
The federal agency also noted that the Biden administration’s Office for Civil Rights “pushed schools across the country to illegally allow males to intrude into women’s sports and intimate facilities, and it investigated school staff for using incorrect pronouns or failing to ask students to declare a preferred gender.” The Trump administration has since rescinded those agreements.
“This once again aligns Title IX’s sex-based protections with biological reality, not ideological fantasy,” the department stated.”
