A ‘Political Decision’: Biden Admin to Postpone New Title IX Regulations Until Post-Election
In April of 2023, the Biden administration proposed new regulations to Title IX that would change how schools comply with the 52-year-old federal law. The policy change would enact new protections for students who identify as transgender, specifically pertaining to sports. Last week, The Washington Post reported that the administration is set to delay implementing any changes, considering the election is right around the corner.
“Folks close to Biden have made the political decision to not move on the athletics [regulation] pre-election. It seems to be too much of a hot topic,” an anonymous source familiar with the administration commented to the Post.
In the words of a U.S. Department of Education fact sheet, “The proposed rule affirms that students benefit from the chance to join a school sports team to learn about teamwork, leadership, and physical fitness.” Former Senior Counselor to the Secretary of Education and current President of the Defense of Freedom Institute for Family Studies Robert Eitel offered a different perspective.
“Don’t believe the spin that its proposed Title IX regulations won’t harm athletics for women and girls,” he wrote in the City Journal. Eitel concluded his article by issuing a warning to Americans, “The stakes are high. Female athletes face unfair competition, reduced participation, and the loss of championships, awards, prizes, scholarships, and other recognition, as well as possible injury or worse.”
The news of the initial proposal sparked immense controversy. The Education Department received a record-breaking number of comments (close to 240,000) during its public comment period. Since the surge of responses, the process of actually implementing the new regulations have appeared to slow. While the Biden administration attributes the delay to a “procedural hurdle,” experts are putting forth a different theory.
“I have always thought this rule would be delayed until the chaos that will result from it happens after the 2024 election,” said Family Research Council’s Meg Kilgannon, a former Education official under President Donald Trump. “When K-12 schools begin to grapple with the implications of denying biological reality in favor of gender ideology, it is going to cause tremendous stress on the public school system. And for states that have protected women’s sports by law, this will be a very bitter pill to swallow.”
There are currently 25 states that have banned transgender-identifying students from participating in sports opposite of their biological sex, while the other 25 states (including five territories and D.C.) have no such bans. If the proposal is implemented, individual schools would be allowed jurisdiction to “bar transgender athletes from participating in competitive high school and college sports,” but at the same time, the proposal would “disallow blanket banson the athletes that have been approved across the country.”
Between 2022 and 2023, CRC Research for the 85 Fund conducted 15 national polls of 1,600 registered voters “to gauge public opinion about a variety of Gender Agenda issues.” The poll, which was exclusively shared with The Daily Wire, revealed strong public opposition to Biden’s Title IX changes as well as transgender treatments to children under 18.
While the majority of Americans oppose the proposed changes to Title IX, the Biden administration is feeling the heat from both the red and blue sides of the issue. In December, “Title IX reform advocates” protested outside of the White House calling for “immediate action.” Meanwhile, advocates for women’s sports like Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.) have publicly opposed the regulation.
“Not only is allowing men to play in women’s sports a flagrant violation of fairness as well as posing a danger to women in the locker room and the bathrooms, making women feel the opposite of unique… it normalizes and encourages the terrible reality and tragedy of children mutilating themselves in a misguided and hopeless attempt to change genders,” he said at a hearing held by the Subcommittee on Health Care and Financial Services titled “The Importance of Protecting Female Athletics and Title IX.”
Considering this is election year, there is speculation that the administration is delaying the edits to Title IX “given President Biden’s shaky approval ratings and multiple polls showing most Americans don’t want male-born athletes competing in female sports.”
Paul Dupont of the American Principles Project put it this way last September, “On the one hand, the left-wing activist base will keep the pressure on until they declare Title IX protects male athletes who identify as female. And on the other hand, the administration knows this policy would be massively unpopular with voters.”
As the Biden administration continues to straddle this dilemma, concerns regarding the president’s age also pose a threat to his re-election chances. A poll conducted by Daily Mail shows that 33% of American voters believe Biden will not survive another four-year term in office. It also reveals that 36% of likely voters believe current Vice President Kamala Harris will need to take over the presidency if Biden is re-elected in November.
“Given that President Biden’s polling numbers are low and seem to be falling,” Kilgannon concluded, “I think the administration would rather focus attention on their naked attempt to buy votes with student loan forgiveness, rather than the disturbing implications of redefining sex and forcing school children to comply with adult sexual issues.”
