Blocking Biden on Title IX

On Jan. 9, U.S. District Judge Danny Reeves struck down the Biden administration’s proposed regulations to Title IX, which were released in April of last year. The decision follows an injunction Reeves put in place last summer, which put a temporary halt on Biden’s regulations. The new rules were intended for implementation in August 2024.

In a column about the injunction that I wrote last summer, I discussed the backstory. The Biden administration wants to revise Title IX so that it would provide legal protections for LGBTQ students. The attorneys general in six states—Tennessee, Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana, Virginia, and West Virginia—filed suit to block the new regulations. The suit argued that the new rules undermined the original intent of Title IX and threatened the religious freedom of schools that affirm a traditional, binary understanding of the sexes. While Reeves’ injunction applied to the six states that brought the lawsuit, eventually 26 states refused to implement the changes because of various legal challenges from conservative lawmakers.

In his final decision published last week, Reeves argues the Biden administration is attempting to transform the meaning and application of Title IX, all the while bypassing the legislative process. He also reiterates his previous concerns about the threat Biden’s proposed rules pose to First Amendment freedoms. Reeves contends that the 2020 regulations adopted by the Trump administration are consistent with the original intention of Title IX, dating to its adoption in 1972. There is no need to revise a law that does exactly what it was intended to do.

Conservatives are celebrating the decision, including former Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, who served in the first Trump administration. Reeves’ ruling is another blow to the Biden administration, particularly Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona, whose efforts to implement progressive policies have been thwarted consistently by commonsense courts and conservative state legislatures. One recent article referred to the “graveyard” of higher education policies Biden will leave behind.

Left-leaning education periodicals like The Chronicle of Higher Education and Inside Higher Education slanted their coverage toward progressives who lament the Reeves decision. They offer the usual arguments. Transgenderism is a defining civil rights issue of our era. Decent people believe that biological men in female spaces are perfectly normal. Women will not be safe if Title IX isn’t redefined. Conservatives don’t care about violence toward women or sexual minorities. Conservatives are a threat to authentic education.

Transgenderism in educational contexts has become an increasingly volatile front in the culture war, especially in intercollegiate athletics. Last fall, women’s college volleyball was in the news when the teams at several universities in the Mountain West Conference refused to compete against San José State University because its team included a male player who identified as female. The San José State team captain sided with those who refused to compete, and an assistant coach was terminated for criticizing the school for showing favoritism to the transgender athlete. Carl Trueman noted in a WORLD Opinions column on the controversy that women’s athletics was changing people’s minds about transgenderism.

President-elect Donald Trump has not always been a reliable ally for social conservatives, but to his credit, he has been a strong critic of efforts to impose transgender ideology on Americans. Trump had previously promised he would undo Biden’s Title IX regulations once he took office. Thankfully, with Reeves’s final ruling, Trump doesn’t have to take action on this matter, at least for now.

All this is part of a larger dynamic playing out in American culture. Progressives want to normalize revisionist views of gender and sexuality, including transgenderism, and compel all Americans to embrace their views or face the consequences. Conservatives continue to affirm traditional views and resist progressive attempts to demand compliance. Many Americans are somewhere in between. They may have no personal objection to transgenderism or other views that are part of the LGBTQ alphabet soup. But a growing number are concerned about elements of the progressive vision, or they refuse to countenance the coercive tactics of progressive activists who demand everyone affirm or even celebrate their views.

Conservatives are right to celebrate the Reeves ruling, but we need not fool ourselves into thinking the matter is settled. There will be future battles as progressives continue to try to force their sexual ethic, including transgenderism, upon all Americans—all the while claiming the moral high ground. Conservative Christians, in particular, should continue to offer a compelling case for traditional views of gender and sexuality that are rooted in Scripture, reflected in natural law, and consistent with sound science. And we must continue to hold President-elect Trump and all our leaders accountable in addressing these contested matters in ways that tell the truth about human nature and are conducive to authentic human flourishing.