WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Department of Education formally restored the 2020 Title IX regulations to the Code of Federal Regulations, cementing the framework the agency has been enforcing since federal courts invalidated the Biden administration’s 2024 rule.
The action brings the published regulations into line with the department’s existing enforcement posture. The agency had already returned to enforcing the 2020 rule after courts blocked and later vacated the 2024 regulations.
Title IX prohibits sex discrimination in education programs and activities receiving federal financial assistance.
The Biden administration’s 2024 rule faced repeated legal challenges, including injunctions from multiple courts and later nationwide vacatur. The Education Department said remaining litigation over the regulation was dismissed last month, clearing the way for the formal restoration of the prior text.
“Today’s rulemaking clears the Biden Administration’s illegal rewrite of Title IX from the Code of Federal Regulations and restores the commonsense language promulgated in the first Trump Administration,” Education Secretary Linda McMahon said.
The department has framed its current enforcement approach around sex-based protections in athletics and intimate facilities, including bathrooms and locker rooms.
It has also reached resolution agreements with institutions including the University of Pennsylvania and Wagner College requiring changes to athletics and facility policies.
The department and Justice Department created a Title IX Special Investigations Team to handle investigations and enforcement involving alleged violations.
That team has examined policies in states including California, Washington and Minnesota, while the Education Department has opened separate investigations involving schools and athletic organizations over allegations related to women’s sports, sex-separated facilities and responses to sexual assault and harassment.
The department has also escalated enforcement in several disputes. It initiated proceedings involving federal education funding for Maine, placed five Northern Virginia school districts on reimbursement status for more than $50 million in department funds, and referred disputes involving Minnesota and California education authorities to the Justice Department.
The restored rule does not create a new enforcement framework. Instead, it formally returns the 2020 regulatory text to the Code of Federal Regulations and aligns the published rule with the standards the department says it has already been applying.
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