Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Sep 12, 2022 / 14:00 pm
Today marks the end of the public comment period for the Biden administration’s updated Title IX rule after hundreds of thousands of comments disappeared from the record this weekend in a move the Education Department is calling a “clerical error.”
The rule has been the subject of outcry from concerned parents and religious groups who will be impacted by it since its proposal in June when the administration re-interpreted Title IX's federal ban on sex discrimination to include “sexual orientation or gender identity.”
Religious freedom and free speech advocates warn that the proposed rule change could be used to enforce mandates on hiring, bathrooms, using preferred pronouns, and dress codes.
First reported by Politico in a weekly education newsletter, public comments on the rule numbered over 349,000 in the Federal Register last Tuesday. On Friday, however, more than 160,000 comments vanished from the website, reducing the total to 184,009 entries.