Washington D.C., Jun 25, 2021 / 16:10 pm
The Biden administration’s expansion of Title IX protections could end up hurting women’s sports and contradicting the purpose of the statute, legal experts critical of the new policy told CNA this week.
The Biden administration this week issued a “notice of interpretation” that it would enforce Title IX protections against sex discrimination in education to also protect sexual orientation and gender identity. The Education Department also sent a memo to educators detailing its policy shift. The memo was issued on the week of the 49th anniversary of Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972.
In a “Dear Educator” letter issued on June 23, the agency’s Acting Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights, Suzanne Goldberg, wrote that her office “will fully enforce Title IX to prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity in education programs and activities that receive Federal financial assistance from the Department.”
In an email to CNA, Ryan Anderson, president of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, called the administration’s announcement “bad policy,” saying it would open up private spaces for women to biological males identifying as transgender females.