Victory for Women and Girls as Court Erases Radical Title IX Rewrite
January 10, 2025 | Washington, D.C.
A federal court put the final nail in the coffin of the Biden Administration’s attempt to radically redefine “sex” on January 9, 2025, when it struck down the Title IX regulations proposed by the outgoing Department of Education.
“This is a clear victory for students, parents, teachers, and the First Amendment,” said Eagle Forum President Kris Ullman. “We are grateful that the Court recognized that by redefining ‘sex’ to include ‘gender identity,’ the Biden Administration had overstepped its authority and gutted the original meaning of the statute. Now all schools must return protections to women and girls in athletics and academics. Students and teachers will no longer face discrimination charges for the fake crime of ‘using the wrong pronouns.’ Our daughters can once again be guaranteed privacy in bathrooms and locker rooms. Parents no longer can be told that federal law prevents them from knowing if schools are secretly fostering their children’s ‘transition.’”
The decision from the U.S. District Court in the Eastern District of Kentucky applies to all schools that receive federal funding. The regulations were already on hold in more than half the country due to challenges by states and coalitions of concerned parents. In this case, the Kentucky Court struck down the regulations in a motion for summary judgment, determining that the Administration had incorrectly applied Supreme Court precedent in their justification for expanding the law.
“It is abundantly clear that discrimination on the basis of sex means discrimination on the basis of being a male or female,” Judge Danny C. Reeves wrote. “Expanding the meaning of ‘on the basis of sex’ to include ‘gender identity’ turns Title IX on its head…The entire point of Title IX is to prevent discrimination based on sex — throwing gender identity into the mix eviscerates the statute and renders it largely meaningless.”
“The whole purpose of Title IX, from its beginning more than 50 years ago, was to protect educational and athletic opportunities for women and girls,” Ullman said. “This decision preserves the original meaning of Title IX and ensures that its protections for women and girls still exist. Eagle Forum was founded to defend the unique rights and privileges of American women by defeating the misnamed Equal Rights Amendment, which like this radical rewrite of Title IX, would have erased the very concept of ‘women’ from the law.”
“We look forward to working with the incoming Trump Administration to further protect children from harmful queer ideology in classrooms and to prevent the medical abuse of children who suffer gender dysphoria. This victory, we hope, is the first of many to restore common sense and legal protections to the women, families, and children of America,” Ullman concluded.