Dear Colleague letter reverts Title IX enforcement to the 2020 rule (reissued Feb. 4)
- Date
- Actor
- ED Office for Civil Rights (Acting Assistant Secretary Craig Trainor)
- Agency
- Department of Education (ED)
- Type
- Guidance/memo
- Section
- DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION
Summary
Following the January 9, 2025 nationwide vacatur of the Biden administration's 2024 Title IX rule in Tennessee v. Cardona (E.D. Ky.), OCR announced that effective immediately all Title IX investigations - including those opened under the 2024 rule - would proceed under the 2020 rule, which does not treat gender-identity discrimination as sex discrimination. The letter, styled a "Title IX Enforcement Directive" and reissued with minor changes on February 4, 2025, instructs that ED "must enforce Title IX consistent with" EO 14168's biology-based definitions of sex (see section 1). It is the legal foundation for every subsequent trans-related Title IX action in this section, adopted without notice-and-comment rulemaking.
Status
In effect; its lawfulness as an uncodified reinterpretation of Title IX is being challenged in APA suits by CSU, Jefferson County (CO), NYC, and others (see section 10).
As recorded in the data of . Check the sources for anything newer.
Related litigation
Documents
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Dear Colleague letter reverts Title IX enforcement to the 2020 rule (reissued Feb. 4)
Letter from Craig Trainor, Acting Ass't Sec'y for Civil Rights, U.S. Dep't of Educ., to Colleagues (Feb. 4, 2025), https://www.ed.gov/media/document/title-ix-enforcement-directive-dcl-109477.pdf.
Sources
- grandriversolutions.com/u-s-department-of-education-issues-and-re-issues-dear-c…(opens another site)
- natlawreview.com/article/us-department-education-confirms-it-will-enforce-2020-…(opens another site)
- ed.gov/media/document/title-ix-enforcement-directive-dcl-109477.pdf(opens another site)PDF, external
Cite this action
Letter from Craig Trainor, Acting Ass't Sec'y for Civil Rights, U.S. Dep't of Educ., to Colleagues (Feb. 4, 2025), https://www.ed.gov/media/document/title-ix-enforcement-directive-dcl-109477.pdf.
Short form: Letter from Craig Trainor, Acting Ass't Sec'y for Civil Rights, U.S. Dep't of Educ., to Colleagues (Feb. 4, 2025), https://www.ed.gov/media/document/title-ix-enforcement-directive-dcl-109477.pdf.