The new Title IX regulations issued by the Biden administration in 2024 are not in force. A federal court vacated that rule nationwide in January 2025, and schools that receive federal funding are once again bound by the 2020 Title IX regulations.1U.S. Department of Education. Regulations Enforced by the Office for Civil Rights Those older rules set a higher bar for actionable harassment and require colleges and universities to hold live hearings with cross-examination.
How the 2024 Rule Was Vacated
The Department of Education published its rewrite of the Title IX regulations on April 29, 2024, with an effective date of August 1, 2024.2Federal Register. 89 FR 33474 – Nondiscrimination on the Basis of Sex in Education Programs or Activities Receiving Federal Financial Assistance The rule would have expanded protections for LGBTQI+ students, lowered the threshold for actionable harassment, broadened schools’ jurisdiction over off-campus conduct, and restructured how complaints are investigated and adjudicated.
Legal challenges arrived almost immediately. Before the rule ever took effect, courts in multiple states issued preliminary injunctions, and by late 2024 the rule was enjoined across more than half the country. On January 9, 2025, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky vacated the 2024 rule on a nationwide basis. The Department of Education has since confirmed that “the 2024 Title IX regulations and these resources are not effective in any jurisdiction.”3U.S. Department of Education. Sex Discrimination – Overview of the Law The 2020 regulations snapped back into effect for every institution receiving federal money.1U.S. Department of Education. Regulations Enforced by the Office for Civil Rights
On January 20, 2025, President Trump signed an executive order directing the Attorney General to “correct the misapplication” of the Supreme Court’s Bostock v. Clayton County decision to Title IX.4The White House. Defending Women From Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government The Biden administration had relied on Bostock, an employment case holding that firing someone for being gay or transgender counts as sex discrimination, to justify extending those protections to students. The Trump order calls that interpretation “legally untenable” and directs agencies to rescind all guidance documents treating gender identity as protected under Title IX, including the 2024 implementation materials and the 2021 enforcement memo applying Bostock to education. The Department of Education has described the 2024 rule as “illegal” and confirmed it is enforcing the 2020 regulations.5U.S. Department of Education. U.S. Department of Education Rescinds Illegal Title IX Resolution Agreements
What the 2020 Rules Require Right Now
The 2020 regulations govern every current sex discrimination complaint. Coordinators, administrators, and students need to work from that framework, not from any 2024 material still circulating.
The Harassment Standard
Under the current rules, unwelcome conduct based on sex rises to actionable harassment only when it is “so severe, pervasive, and objectively offensive” that it effectively denies a person equal access to education.6U.S. Department of Education. Online or Digital Sexual Harassment Under the 2020 Title IX Regulations All three elements must be present. Severity alone is not enough, and neither is pervasiveness without objective offensiveness. The standard comes from the Supreme Court’s Davis v. Monroe County Board of Education decision and sets a deliberately high bar.7Federal Register. Nondiscrimination on the Basis of Sex in Education Programs or Activities Receiving Federal Financial Assistance
Some conduct skips that analysis entirely. Sexual assault, dating violence, domestic violence, and stalking are treated as automatically denying equal access and do not require a separate severity evaluation.6U.S. Department of Education. Online or Digital Sexual Harassment Under the 2020 Title IX Regulations Quid pro quo harassment, where a school employee conditions a benefit on unwelcome sexual conduct, is also actionable regardless of how severe or pervasive the underlying conduct was.
Live Hearings at Colleges
At postsecondary institutions, the 2020 rules require a live hearing with cross-examination. Each party’s advisor, never the party personally, may directly question the other party and every witness. Before anyone answers a cross-examination question, the decision-maker must evaluate it for relevance and explain any decision to exclude a question.8U.S. Department of Education. Summary of Major Provisions of the Department of Education’s Title IX Final Rule
Schools must provide a free advisor to any party who does not have one. At either party’s request, the hearing must be held with parties in separate rooms connected by video. The school must produce an audio or audiovisual recording, or a transcript, of the proceeding. The decision-maker cannot also be the investigator or the Title IX Coordinator.8U.S. Department of Education. Summary of Major Provisions of the Department of Education’s Title IX Final Rule K-12 schools face different requirements and are not required to hold live hearings.
Where Title IX Reaches
The 2020 rules limit Title IX to conduct occurring within a school’s “education program or activity” and within the United States. Off-campus incidents outside a school-controlled setting generally fall outside a school’s Title IX obligation, even when the effects spill onto campus. This is one of the sharpest contrasts with the 2024 rewrite, which would have followed the effects rather than the location.
What the Vacated 2024 Rule Would Have Done
Some schools voluntarily adopted parts of the 2024 rule during the brief window it was live in certain jurisdictions. Any policy carried over from that period should be checked against the 2020 requirements, because the 2024 provisions no longer have legal force.
The 2024 rule would have added sexual orientation, gender identity, sex stereotypes, sex characteristics, and pregnancy-related conditions to the definition of sex discrimination.9eCFR. 34 CFR 106.10 – Scope Because the current administration has rejected applying Bostock to Title IX, those protections do not apply under the regulations now in force.
The harassment definition would also have been loosened. Instead of requiring conduct to be severe and pervasive and objectively offensive, the 2024 rule defined hostile-environment harassment as conduct that was “subjectively and objectively offensive” and “severe or pervasive” enough to limit access to education.10U.S. Department of Education. Title IX Final Rule – Unofficial Version Switching “and” to “or” was the most consequential single-word change in the rewrite.
The rule would have expanded jurisdiction to reach off-campus and online conduct whenever the resulting hostile environment affected a school’s programs, even conduct occurring outside the United States.11eCFR. 34 CFR 106.11 – Application It would have eliminated the mandatory live hearing at colleges, letting schools instead use written question-and-answer procedures run through an investigator or decision-maker.12eCFR. 34 CFR 106.46 – Grievance Procedures for Sex-Based Harassment Complaints at Postsecondary Institutions And it would have required nearly all employees, other than designated confidential employees, to notify the Title IX Coordinator of any conduct that might constitute sex discrimination, replacing the 2020 rule’s narrower “actual knowledge” trigger.10U.S. Department of Education. Title IX Final Rule – Unofficial Version
None of that is binding on schools today.
Filing a Complaint
The underlying statute has not moved. No person shall be excluded from participation in, denied the benefits of, or subjected to discrimination under any education program receiving federal financial assistance.13Department of Justice. Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 Every federal agency that provides financial assistance is required to enforce that mandate.14U.S. Department of Education. Title IX and Sex Discrimination If you believe you have experienced sex discrimination at a school, you can file a complaint with your school’s Title IX Coordinator or directly with the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights. The regulatory framework applied to that complaint today is the 2020 rule.