On Monday, Education Secretary Linda McMahon divulged a final regulation that seeks to restore a rule on how sexual misconduct is probed on college campuses.
Expected to officially be published Tuesday, the final rule comes after federal courts departed from a Biden administration regulation that sought to strengthen discrimination protections based on sexual orientation and gender identity, according to a story by Newsmax.
The move restores rules adopted during President Donald Trump’s first term.
The final regulation removes the Biden-era rule from the federal regulatory code after a federal court struck it down and reinstates the Trump administration’s 2020 framework governing how schools handle sexual-misconduct allegations.
The move “clears the Biden Administration’s illegal rewrite of Title IX” and restores the previous rule’s language, McMahon said in a statement.
“Thanks to today’s action, the published Title IX regulations faithfully reflect court orders and Congressional intent — reducing confusion for parents, students, and educational institutions,” she said, The Hill reported.
McMahon told OutKick that Monday’s action represents “a full return to Title IX.”
“It was boys in boys sports and girls in girls sports, and now the Biden rules and regulations are being rescinded,” McMahon said.
The regulation itself stops short of formally defining “sex” under Title IX as biological sex, according to Politico.
Enacted in 1972, Title IX bans sex discrimination at schools receiving federal funding.
The 2024 Biden administration’s regulations enlarged the definition of sex discrimination to include discrimination based on gender identity and sexual orientation.
But a federal judge in Kentucky vacated those regulations nationwide in January 2025, ruling that the Education Department had exceeded its authority.
The ruling effectively returned schools to the 2020 Trump-era regulations.
Those rules require colleges to use a formal process for sexual-misconduct complaints, including live hearings in certain cases and opportunities for representatives of accusers and accused students to question witnesses and challenge evidence.
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