Former President Trump said Friday that he would revoke protections for transgender students enacted last month by the Biden administration “on day one” of his presidency if he were reelected in November.
The Education Department in April unveiled a final set of sweeping changes to Title IX, the federal civil rights law that prevents sex discrimination in schools and education programs that receive government funding. The new regulations, which are expected to come into force on August 1, cover discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity for the first time.
“We’re going to end this on day one,” Trump said Friday during an appearance on “Kayal and Company,” a conservative radio program in Philadelphia. “Don’t forget, this was done on the president’s orders. This was approved as an executive order. And we’re going to change that – on day one that’s going to change.”
President Biden in 2021 executive order wrote that “all students must be guaranteed an educational environment free from discrimination based on sex, including discrimination in the form of sexual harassment, which includes sexual violence, and including discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity”.
“For students attending schools and other educational institutions that receive federal financial assistance, this guarantee is codified, in part, in Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972,” Biden wrote in the executive order, which formally tasked the Department of Education with reviewing the Title. IX regulations instituted under Trump.
“Tell your people not to worry about it,” Trump told hosts Nick Kayal and Dawn Stensland on Friday, referring to the new Title IX rule. “It will be signed on the first day. It will be closed.”
Trump has also promised to enact at least a dozen policies that target transgender rights as president, including a national ban on transgender student-athletes competing according to their gender identity and a federal law that recognizes only two genders. He also promised to punish health care providers who administer gender-affirming medical care to minors.
Although Title IX is a federal law, each administration takes a different approach to enforcing its regulations, which schools are then required to follow as a condition of receiving federal funding.
Republican governors, attorneys general and education officials have vowed to reject the law’s expanded protections for transgender students, and their state’s school districts have been told to ignore them. Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders (R) this month ordered the state to defy the new regulations and said she would take legal action against the Biden administration “for any financial loss, including loss of funding.”
Lawsuits filed by more than a dozen Republican-led states this month allege that the administration’s rule undermines federal non-discrimination protections for students who are not transgender and incorrectly applies the reasoning of a 2020 Supreme Court ruling that protects employees from discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity to Title IX.
It is hoped that the lawsuits, most of which are filed in conservative jurisdictions, will succeed in blocking, at least temporarily, the new Title IX regulations from taking effect this summer.
The Biden administration has not yet finalized a separate rule governing athletics eligibility. The proposal put forward by the Department of Education last year would prohibit schools from enacting policies that categorically ban transgender student-athletes from sports teams that match their gender identity.
This story originally appeared on thehill.com read the full story
