Trump Admin Drops Biden-Era Appeal That Sought Gender-Identity Protection in Schools

Oklahoma secured a preliminary injunction last July preventing the Department of Education from issuing a new Title IX regulation.

U.S. Department of Education building in Washington on July 6, 2023. Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times

The Trump administration dropped the federal government’s appeal of a preliminary injunction that blocked the government from extending gender identity discrimination protections to the education sector.

The appeal had been initiated by the Biden administration, which left office on Jan. 20, but the new administration decided not to pursue it. Often when a new president is inaugurated the new administration changes position in litigation that is already before the courts.

The March 14 dismissal of the appeal by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit was granted upon the consent of both sides in the litigation.

Oklahoma obtained the injunction from a federal district judge last summer after the Biden administration moved to amend Title IX regulations, which cover sex-based discrimination in educational institutions, to include discrimination based on gender identity. Other courts also blocked the effort to modify the regulations.

Title IX refers to Public Law 92-318, or the federal Education Amendments Act of 1972, which amended four federal education-related statutes.

“No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance,” the legislation states.

In 1980, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruled in Alexander v. Yale University that under Title IX, sexual harassment constituted sex discrimination.

Oklahoma challenged the Department of Education’s proposed rule and U.S. District Judge Jodi Dishman of the Western District of Oklahoma granted a preliminary injunction against it on July 31, 2024.

Dishman wrote in her order that the rule’s “gender identity mandate is inexplicably logically inconsistent with several provisions of Title IX.”

The rule would require that a biological male who identifies as female to sleep in a boys’ dormitory but would at the same time permit him to use the girls’ locker room, she wrote.

“This approach undercuts Title IX’s purpose, epitomizes a clear error in judgment, and entirely fails to consider important aspects of the problem the Department sought to resolve,” the judge wrote.

The Biden administration appealed the injunction to the Tenth Circuit in September 2024 but the case had not reached the oral-argument stage by the time it was dismissed on March 14.

In August 2024, the U.S. Supreme Court narrowly rejected the Biden administration’s request to partially enforce its Title IX rule in 10 states.

At the end of January, the second Trump administration sent a notice to schools and colleges reminding them that sex-based discrimination claims should be handled according to the traditional definition of sex, which includes only the male and female sexes.

In the letter, the Department of Education said it will be enforcing the Title IX regulations introduced by the first Trump administration in 2020, which provide that “sex” means the “objective, immutable characteristic of being born male or female.”

President Donald Trump also issued Executive Order 14168 on Jan. 20, which states that it is the government’s policy “to recognize two sexes, male and female” and that “these sexes are not changeable and are grounded in fundamental and incontrovertible reality.” The order provides that federal civil rights laws like Title IX should not be interpreted to cover gender identity.

Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond hailed the dismissal of the federal government’s appeal.

“I appreciate President Trump’s willingness to dismiss the misguided appeal filed by the Biden Administration,” Drummond said in a March 17 statement. “Oklahoma students can now rest assured they will be protected from invasions of privacy and other unnecessary harm, thanks to this responsible resolution.”

The Epoch Times reached out to the Department of Justice for comment. No reply was received by publication time.

Bill Pan contributed to this report.