by Aubrey Gulick
Locker rooms and bathrooms at schools that accept public funding are about to become dangerous places for women — even in states that have the kind of commonsense legislation intended to keep women’s private spaces private.
Last week, the Biden administration released a host of changes to Title IX, the federal legislation that is best known for dictating equal treatment of men and women in sports and for governing the way schools handle sexual assault charges. While the administration hasn’t yet decided whether biological men who identify as female should be allowed to compete in women’s sports, it redefined “sex” as “gender identity” in almost every other context while simultaneously allowing schools to violate the due process rights of students accused of sexual assault.
So Much for State Law
Practically speaking, the changes, which will take effect on Aug. 1, will mean that teachers can be accused of discrimination for “misgendering” students, and that schools will have to allow biological men who identify as females to use women’s bathrooms and locker rooms — even in states that have passed legislation protecting women’s private spaces. One senior administration official said that the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights will be able to investigate cases of alleged discrimination by the schools, even if those schools were in compliance with state law.
Additionally, convicting a student for sexual assault will be far easier next school year. Under the Trump administration, a student accused of sexual assault (or his lawyer) could cross-examine witnesses and their accuser, and schools had to meet a standard of “clear and convincing evidence” before they convicted him or her. While the Biden administration doesn’t prohibit schools from employing the more rigorous standards of the Trump administration, it doesn’t require schools to meet the same high standards.
Beginning in August, when students are accused of sexual assault, they won’t have a right to cross-examine their accuser or witnesses (a violation of their due process rights), and schools are directed to use the much lower standard of a “preponderance of evidence” to convict them.
“This regulation … seeks to u-turn to the bad old days where sexual misconduct was sent to campus kangaroo courts, not resolved in a way that actually sought justice,” former Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos said in a statement on X. “It restores the so-called ‘single investigator’ model, where the same campus #DEI bureaucrat is the detective, prosecutor, judge, jury and executioner.”
Title IX Changes Threaten Women
The revisions, which span 1,577 pages, massively expand the scope of what will be considered “discrimination” under Title IX. According to one summary, sex discrimination now includes any discrimination “based on sex stereotypes, sex characteristics, pregnancy or related conditions, sexual orientation, and gender identity.”
As Riley Gaines pointed out on X, the new rewrite effectively means that biological males can now compete for women’s athletic and academic scholarships, use women’s bathrooms, share dorm rooms with women, and dictate the pronouns students and faculty use for them — they just need to identify as women.
The Biden Admin has just officially abolished Title IX as we knew it. Now, sex = gender identity.
In a nutshell, the new rewrite means:
– men can take academic AND athletic scholarships from women
– men will have FULL access to bathrooms, locker rooms, etc
– men could be… pic.twitter.com/JfQVI9Yfph— Riley Gaines (@Riley_Gaines_) April 19, 2024
“This regulation is an assault on women and girls,” DeVos wrote on X. “It makes it a federal requirement that feelings, not facts, dictate how Title IX is enforced.”
While the Biden administration hasn’t explicitly forced colleges and schools to allow biological men who identify as transgender to compete on women’s sports — something 25 states have banned and most Americans oppose — the Washington Post reported that those changes are in the works (after the 2024 election cycle, of course), and it’s not hard to guess where the administration will fall on the issue. After all, if sex discrimination includes gender identity, then preventing a man who identifies as a woman from competing in a woman’s volleyball tournament is discrimination.
These kinds of changes to Title IX put many states and educational institutions (both universities and public schools) in an awkward position. State laws and regulations may require schools to keep men out of women’s bathrooms and locker rooms, but complying with the state law would require violating Title IX, which could ultimately mean those schools are barred from receiving federal funds. That may have unintended beneficial consequences (we should be rethinking the billions of taxpayer dollars winding their way into woke schools), but it’s hardly a healthy political strategy for a country.
The Biden administration’s changes to Title IX will doubtlessly face legal challenges moving forward. May Mailman, the director of the Independent Women’s Law Center, announced that the group already has plans to sue the Biden administration. “The unlawful omnibus regulations reimagines Title IX to permit the invasion of women’s spaces and the reduction of women’s rights in the name of elevating protections for ‘gender identity,’ which is contrary to the text and purpose of Title IX,” she said in a statement.
Meanwhile, Alliance Defending Freedom legal counsel Rachel Rouleau said in a statement that “[ADF] plans to take action to defend female athletes, as well as school districts, teachers, and students who will be gravely harmed by this unlawful government overreach.”
The need for those kinds of legal actions will quickly become apparent as women feel increasingly threatened, not just on the athletic field, but even in their most intimate spaces.
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Aubrey Gulick is a recent graduate from Hillsdale College and the Intercollegiate Studies Institute Fellow at The American Spectator. When she isn’t writing, Aubrey enjoys long runs, solving rock climbs, and rattling windows with the 32-foot pipes on the organ. Follow her on Twitter @AubGulick.
