Federal court strikes down Biden’s Title IX revisions

A federal judge in Kentucky on Thursday ruled that the Biden administration’s attempt to redefine sex in the landmark women’s rights bill, Title IX, is unconstitutional. The Biden administration early last year issued a federal rule redefining sex in Title IX to include gender identity. The change would have made it harder for schools and other institutions to protect women’s spaces from men claiming to be women. Several states and other groups pushed back against the change.

What exactly did the judge decide? The administration’s attempt to redefine sex in Title IX exceeded the Department of Education’s authority. The attempt not only violated the U.S. Constitution, it contravened the intent of Title IX itself, the judge said. There was nothing in the text of Title IX that suggested that “sex” meant anything other than biological sex—specifically, the sexes of male and female. Reinterpreting sex to include gender identity turned the whole of Title IX on its head, the judge said.

Dig deeper: Read Kristen Waggoner’s column in WORLD Opinions about how the Biden administration's revisions to Title IX would have harmed women and girls.