On Friday, February 7, 2025, the Department of Education began enforcing the 2020 Title IX regulations. The regulations President Donald Trump enacted during his first term. K-12 schools and higher education will implement the rule.
Title IX under Trump 2017-2020
The finalized rule, which President Donald Trump put in place (2016-2020) redefines sexual harassment under Title IX as a form of impermissible sex discrimination. This definition applies to all members of university communities, including students, staff, and faculty. Not only are individual instances of sexual assault or harassment considered sex discrimination under the rule, but an institution’s failure to redress that harassment can also constitute sex discrimination. The Education Department may terminate federal financial assistance to institutions that OCR determines. Through an administrative enforcement proceeding, to have violated Title IX.
The rule imposes new obligations on schools and universities, including a new standard for determining whether an institution has violated Title IX by failing to address and alleviate sexual harassment. The regulations largely adopt the U.S. Supreme Court’s jurisprudence on sexual harassment, which provides a baseline framework for determining when an institution’s actions constitute impermissible sex discrimination.
Title IX under Biden 2021-2024
President Joe Biden made many changes to the Title IX rules, undoing many of the harmful rules put in place in 2020 by the Trump administration. In short, the 2020 rules relied on and reinforced the harmful and false myth that people who report sexual harassment, primarily girls and women, tend to be lying and therefore must be subjected to more scrutiny.
The Biden administration’s Title IX rules were consistent with Title IX’s broad mandate to prohibit sex discrimination in education. They restored and enhanced many of Title IX’s protections against sex-based harassment and other sex discrimination. The rules Biden put in place also formalized greater protections against discrimination for LGBTQI+ students and pregnant and parenting students.
Title IX under Trump – Current
On Trump’s first day in office, he signed off on a document stating that there are only 2 genders in the U.S.A. The only genders being male and female. While President Trump is currently in office, the 2020 Title IX regulations will be implemented. The rules have been criticized for making it more difficult for victims to report sexual harassment as well as for implementing several due process requirements for individuals accused of sexual assault, such as allowing them to cross-examine their accuser, a process that advocates call traumatizing for assault survivors. Additionally, the regulations limit Title IX’s jurisdiction to incidents that take place on campus and more narrowly define sexual harassment as compared to the Biden rule.
What is Title IX?
Congress passed the law on June 23, 1972. This federal law further protects students against discrimination based on sexual orientation in schools. The Office for Civil Rights of the U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare administers Title IX.
How does this affect students?
So what does this mean for students like you and me? Essentially, the guidelines will make it harder for students to report sexual violence and have such incidents investigated in a timely and trauma-informed manner.
Tracey Vitchers, executive director of It’s On Us, a nationwide student organizing program focused on college sexual assault prevention, said “So many young people will be pushed out of pursuing a complete Title IX investigation because the thought of having to sit across from their assailant, either in person or virtually, was, frankly, too much for them to bear,”
The 2020 regulations fell into place differently. Schools were only legally required to investigate sexual misconduct cases in which students experienced severe and pervasive sexual violence. According to advocates, the unprecedented requirement for survivors to endure live cross-examinations also dissuaded them from reporting wrongdoing.
How students feel about the new regulations…
Student Viktoriya Yaropud was interviewed previously about her opinion on Title IX in schools. Yaropud expressed how she felt about the regulations before Title IX was implemented. She was then asked how she feels about them now. She was also asked how she felt about sexual assault. When asked, Yaropud stated ¨ Oftentimes women are treated as objects, especially in modern day society. I also think it is helpful to have laws like this in place to protect students from sexual assault.¨
Yaropud was interviewed in the spring of 2025. When interviewed, she first said she was annoyed. She stated, ¨I just don´t understand why we constantly want to strip rights away from students. And even though you might not have to file a case involving Title IX, someone else might have to, they might need to. Their life might depend on it.¨
To say the least, students around Colonia High School are frustrated and annoyed with the changes.
