By: Claire Sweetman
Title IX Uncertainty Under Trump’s Second Presidency
In May 2024, the Biden Administration announced its final Title IX regulations, which expanded coverage under the Civil Rights Act of 1972 to include protections for transgender students, and changed how colleges respond to reports of gender-based misconduct. The 2024 regulations, which were subjected to injunction in twenty-six states, went into effect in August of 2024.[1] Now, with the re-election of President Trump, the future of Title IX remains uncertain. Legal experts predict that the Trump Administration will immediately begin the extensive process of altering the Title IX regulations, undoing the work of President Biden’s Administration.[2] In fact, in an interview with a conservative talk radio host in Philadelphia, President Trump said regarding President Biden’s Title IX regulations: “We’re gonna end it on Day 1 . . . It’ll be terminated.”[3]
Although President Trump did not specifically address which provisions of President Biden’s Title IX regulations he would seek to change, he has made many public statements about his personal views on transgender people, and in particular, transgender athletes. In his New York rally several days before the 2024 Presidential Election, President Trump vowed to get “transgender insanity the hell out of our schools” and prevent people assigned male at birth from playing on women’s sports teams.[4] Based on his consistently anti-transgender rhetoric, it is expected that his Title IX regulations will gut the protections for transgender students and employees.
President Trump has also vocalized his plans to dismantle the Department of Education, which would certainly impact Title IX. Indeed, some proposals to abolish the Department would move the agency responsible for investigating claims of mishandling of Title IX complaints to the Department of Justice.[5] Currently, the Office for Civil Rights is responsible for investigating these types of claims.[6]
Experts on both sides of the political aisle agree that the future of Title IX and its new regulations remains uncertain.
SCOTUS to Decide if White, Straight Workers Face Higher Bar in Discrimination Lawsuits
In October 2024, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to take a case to decide whether workers from “majority backgrounds,” such as white or heterosexual people, should be required to meet a higher burden to prevail in workplace discrimination claims.[7] In Ohio, a heterosexual woman named Marlean Ames sought to revive her lawsuit against the Ohio Department of Youth Services, which claimed that she had lost her job to a gay man and was passed over for promotion in favor of a gay woman in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.[8] The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit decided last year that Ames had not demonstrated the “background circumstances” that courts require to prove that she was subject to discrimination based on her heterosexuality.[9]
Circuit courts have disagreed, until now, on whether plaintiffs in “reverse discrimination” cases are required to meet a higher burden of proof, or not.[10] Some courts have stated that because discrimination claims against members of majority groups are so uncommon, the higher bar is justified. Other courts have reasoned that Title VII does not distinguish between bias against minority and majority groups.
The Court heard arguments in its new term which began in October 2024, and a decision is expected by the end of June. A SCOTUS ruling in favor of Ames could boost the growing number of lawsuits made by white and straight workers claiming that they were discriminated against under their company’s DEI policies
[1] https://www.insidehighered.com/news/students/safety/2024/11/15/trump-likely-end-title-ix-protections-trans-students
[2] Id.
[3] https://www.edweek.org/policy-politics/the-uncertainty-ahead-for-title-ix-and-transgender-students-in-trumps-new-term/2024/11
[4] https://www.insidehighered.com/news/students/safety/2024/11/15/trump-likely-end-title-ix-protections-trans-students
[5] Id.
[6] Id.
[7] https://www.usnews.com/news/top-news/articles/2024-10-04/us-supreme-court-to-decide-if-white-straight-workers-face-higher-bar-in-bias-lawsuits
[8] Id.
[9] Id.
[10] Id.