Title IX changes over the past two years have reshaped what schools must do about sex discrimination complaints. A federal court in Kentucky vacated the Biden administration’s 2024 rule nationwide in January 2025, the Trump administration reinstated the 2020 rule within weeks, and two executive orders now direct federal agencies to treat “sex” as an immutable biological classification. Schools and colleges receiving federal money are operating under the older, narrower framework, and the Supreme Court is expected to rule by summer 2026 on whether states can bar transgender athletes from girls’ teams.
The Rule That Applies to Schools Right Now
The 2020 Title IX regulation is back in force nationwide. On January 31, 2025, the Department of Education issued a Dear Colleague Letter confirming the reversion and directing institutions to update their policies and training “without delay.” The letter stated that the 2020 rule applies to every open Title IX investigation, regardless of when the alleged misconduct occurred or which regulation was in effect at the time.1Ballard Spahr. Executive Order Rolls Back Title IX to Pre-Biden Rules Effective Immediately A February 4, 2025, directive told the Office for Civil Rights to reevaluate any investigations opened under the 2024 rule.2U.S. Department of Education. Title IX Enforcement Directive
Under the reinstated framework, sexual harassment must be “severe, pervasive, and objectively offensive” to the point that it “effectively denies” a person equal access to an education program. Schools are only obligated to respond when officials with authority have “actual knowledge” of the conduct. A formal complaint is required to start an investigation, and complaints that do not meet the harassment definition must be dismissed. The “single-investigator” model, in which the same person investigates and decides, is prohibited.3U.S. Department of Education. Summary of Major Provisions of the Title IX Final Rule
Postsecondary institutions must hold live hearings for sexual harassment complaints, at which each party’s advisor cross-examines the other party and witnesses directly and in real time. If a student has no advisor, the school must provide one at no cost. K-12 schools are not required to hold live hearings but must let parties submit written questions for one another.3U.S. Department of Education. Summary of Major Provisions of the Title IX Final Rule
The 2020 rule does not include protections based on gender identity, sexual orientation, or transgender status. That silence is now paired with an affirmative federal policy, described below, that defines sex as binary and biological.
One boundary worth noting: the athletics-specific provisions of Title IX, including the three-part test for participation equity and the proportional scholarship requirement, are unchanged.4U.S. Department of Education. Equal Opportunity in Intercollegiate Athletics Requirements The recent shifts affect how schools handle harassment complaints and how the federal government treats gender identity, not the underlying rules on team funding and roster slots.
How the 2024 Rule Was Struck Down
The Biden administration finalized a sweeping revision of Title IX in April 2024, effective August 1 of that year. It expanded “sexual harassment” to “sex-based harassment,” a category that explicitly included discrimination based on sexual orientation, gender identity, sex stereotypes, sex characteristics, and pregnancy. It lowered the harassment threshold from conduct that was “severe, pervasive, and objectively offensive” to conduct that was “subjectively and objectively offensive” and “so severe or pervasive” that it limited or denied participation. It also eliminated the requirement for live hearings, permitted the single-investigator model, and broadened when schools had to respond, replacing “actual knowledge” with “knowledge” of conduct that “reasonably may constitute sex discrimination.”5Colorado Association of School Boards. Title IX Regulations 2020 vs. 2024 Comparison
Before the rule took full effect, federal courts had blocked enforcement in 26 states, from Alabama and Alaska through West Virginia and Wyoming.6Missouri Independent. Final Title IX Rule Goes Into Effect While Still Blocked in 26 States The decisive ruling came on January 9, 2025, when Chief Judge Danny C. Reeves of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky vacated the rule in its entirety nationwide in State of Tennessee v. Cardona. The court held that the Department of Education had “impermissibly redefined” discrimination “on the basis of sex” to include gender identity and sexual orientation, reading the Supreme Court’s employment-discrimination decision in Bostock v. Clayton County “far too broadly.” The court wrote that “it is abundantly clear that discrimination on the basis of sex means discrimination on the basis of being a male or female.” It also found the rule offended the First Amendment, was vague and overbroad, violated the Spending Clause, and was arbitrary and capricious.7U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky, as reported by Ballard Spahr. Federal Court Strikes Down Title IX Rule
A second nationwide vacatur followed in February 2025, when Judge Reed C. O’Connor of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas struck down the whole regulation in Carroll Independent School District v. Department of Education, reasoning that because parts of the rule were unlawful, the entire regulation should fall.8Public Justice. Carroll Independent School District v. U.S. Department of Education
The Executive Orders Layered on Top
On January 20, 2025, President Trump signed an executive order titled “Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government.” It defined “sex” as “an individual’s immutable biological classification as either male or female,” stated that “sex” does not include “gender identity,” and directed all federal agencies to interpret laws accordingly.9The White House. Defending Women From Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government The Department of Education was directed to rescind guidance inconsistent with that interpretation.
On February 5, 2025, a second order specifically targeted transgender participation in women’s sports. It directed the Department of Education to clarify that Title IX reserves women’s sports for biological females and instructed executive agencies to review grants to educational programs and rescind funding for those permitting transgender women in women’s categories. It also directed the Department of Justice to provide resources for “expeditious enforcement” and pressed the Secretary of State to push the International Olympic Committee to base eligibility on sex rather than gender identity.10The White House. Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports
The order affects roughly 182,000 transgender youth aged 13 to 17 in the 23 states and Washington, D.C. that did not have an explicit ban at the time, in addition to about 117,000 trans youth in states that already had bans.11Williams Institute, UCLA School of Law. Executive Order on Transgender Athletes
Enforcement Under the New Framework
On January 14, 2026, the Office for Civil Rights announced investigations into 18 educational entities across 10 states for policies allowing transgender students to participate on teams consistent with their gender identity. The targets span K-12 districts, colleges, and state education agencies in California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Maine, Massachusetts, Nevada, New York, Pennsylvania, Vermont, and Washington. Named institutions include the New York City Department of Education, the Hawaii State Department of Education, and the University of Nevada at Reno.12K-12 Dive. Education Department Opens 18 Title IX Investigations
Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Kimberly Richey said the office is “aggressively pursuing” complaints about transgender inclusion policies and has shifted focus away from investigating “misgendering” and toward “allegations of girls and women being injured by men on their sports team or feeling violated by men in their intimate spaces.”13U.S. Department of Education. U.S. Department of Education Rescinds Illegal Title IX Resolution Agreements The Department has threatened Magnet School Assistance Program funding for Chicago Public Schools and New York City Public Schools, and in April 2026 sued the state of Maine, where more than $860 million in federal funding could be at risk.14Schiff Senate Office. Letter to Department of Education In April 2026, the Department also rescinded portions of six resolution agreements from prior administrations that had enforced Title IX based on gender identity, involving Cape Henlopen School District, Delaware Valley School District, Fife School District, La Mesa-Spring Valley School District, Sacramento City Unified, and Taft College.
Even as the Department reorients toward transgender-inclusion cases, its capacity to enforce Title IX generally has contracted. In March 2025, Secretary of Education Linda McMahon fired 299 of the Office for Civil Rights’ 575 staff members and shuttered 7 of its 12 regional offices. In 2025, OCR reached only 112 resolution agreements across all categories, the lowest total in at least 12 years and a resolution rate of about 1% for pending cases. Zero resolution agreements were reached in cases involving sexual harassment (777 pending), sexual violence (334 pending), racial harassment (949 pending), discriminatory school discipline (473 pending), or seclusion and restraint of students with disabilities (172 pending).15Senate HELP Committee Minority Staff (Sen. Sanders). Justice Denied: How Trump’s Office for Civil Rights Reached a 12-Year Low
The Government Accountability Office found that between March and September 2025, 90% of OCR’s case resolutions were dismissals, meaning cases were closed without investigation or remedy. In the 25 states and Puerto Rico where regional offices were closed, OCR resolved only 0.5% of pending cases through agreements, compared with 1.6% where offices remained open.15Senate HELP Committee Minority Staff (Sen. Sanders). Justice Denied: How Trump’s Office for Civil Rights Reached a 12-Year Low On March 25, 2025, President Trump signed an executive order initiating the closure of the Department of Education, though formal elimination of a federal agency requires Congress. If OCR keeps shrinking, scholars have warned that Title IX enforcement will shift largely to private litigation, and federal courts handled only 866 education-related civil rights cases in fiscal year 2024 compared with the 22,687 complaints OCR received that year.16UC Davis Law Review. Title IX Enforcement After the Department of Education
The Supreme Court on Transgender Athletes
Two companion cases heard together on January 13, 2026, could reshape Title IX’s application to sports: West Virginia v. B.P.J. and Little v. Hecox.
West Virginia v. B.P.J. involves the state’s “Save Women’s Sports Act,” which bars transgender women and girls from female sports teams in public secondary schools and colleges. A federal district court initially blocked the law as applied to B.P.J., a transgender girl, then ruled for the state. A divided Fourth Circuit reversed, finding the law violated Title IX, and the Supreme Court took the case.17SCOTUSblog. The Transgender Athlete Cases: An Explainer Little v. Hecox challenges Idaho’s “Fairness in Women’s Sports Act,” which the Ninth Circuit previously held likely violated the Equal Protection Clause.18Oyez. Little v. Hecox
The cases ask whether Title IX permits states to designate teams strictly by biological sex at birth and whether the Equal Protection Clause allows the same categorical approach. The Trump administration filed an amicus brief calling the state bans “eminently reasonable.”17SCOTUSblog. The Transgender Athlete Cases: An Explainer During oral arguments, Justice Brett Kavanaugh suggested that allowing transgender athletes to compete could “undermine or reverse” the gains women have made under Title IX and said that when Congress enacted the law, it understood “sex” to mean “biological sex at birth.”19CBS News. Supreme Court Hears Arguments on Transgender Athlete Bans Court observers have widely noted that the Court appeared likely to uphold the bans. A decision is not expected until late June or early July 2026.20National Constitution Center. Unpacking the Transgender Athletes Case at the Supreme Court
State Laws and a Pending Bill in Congress
State legislatures have moved in both directions. As of late 2025, 25 states had enacted laws barring transgender youth from using bathrooms and facilities consistent with their gender identity in public schools or government buildings, affecting an estimated 348,400 transgender youth. Twelve states enacted new bathroom restrictions in 2025 alone, and 17 states adopted laws defining “sex” in ways that can independently restrict facility access.21Williams Institute, UCLA School of Law. Anti-Transgender Legislation 2025 In some states, violations carry criminal penalties.22Movement Advancement Project. Bans on Transgender People Using Public Bathrooms and Facilities At the same time, 17 states and Washington, D.C. have enacted “shield” laws protecting gender-affirming care providers and families from out-of-state interference, with eight states expanding or creating such protections in 2025.
Representative Jodey Arrington of Texas introduced the Title IX Clarification Act of 2026 (H.R. 8781) on May 13, 2026, with 35 cosponsors. The bill would amend the Education Amendments of 1972 to define “sex” as “biologically determined sex, as either male or female,” with biological definitions for each term based on gamete production.23U.S. Congress. H.R. 8781 – Title IX Clarification Act of 2026 As of mid-2026, the bill has been referred to the House Committee on Education and Workforce, with no hearing scheduled and no companion Senate legislation.24U.S. Congress. H.R. 8781 – Title IX Clarification Act of 2026 Enactment would codify in statute what the current administration has achieved through executive orders and regulatory reversion, raising the bar for any future administration to change course.