Project 2025 Tracker / What’s done, what’s next

11. Department of Education · Major · Day one

Rescind Biden Title IX rules and restore the 2020 DeVos regulations

Partially done

333 11. Department of Education

“Commence a new agency rulemaking process to rescind the current Administration's Title IX regulations; restore the Title IX regulations promulgated by then-Secretary Betsy DeVos on May 19, 2020; and define “sex” under Title IX to mean only biological sex recognized at birth.”

Printed again later in the same chapter.

334 11. Department of Education

“On its first day in office, the next Administration should signal its intent to enter the rulemaking process to restore the Trump Administration's Title IX regulation, with the additional insistence that “sex” is properly understood as a fixed biological fact. Official notice-and-comment should be posted immediately.”

What has happened

  1. Partially done

    The Department published a final rule, "Recodification of Title IX Rules" (91 FR 61308), "to repeal the U.S. Department of Education's (Department) 2024 final rule amending the Title IX regulations and restoring the regulatory text that existed prior to the 2024 rulemaking". It gives as its reason that the 2024 rule "has been vacated and is not enforceable nationwide". The text that existed before the 2024 rule is the 2020 DeVos rule. So two of the Quote's three objects are now delivered by a rule: the 2024 regulations are repealed from the Code of Federal Regulations, and the 2020 text is restored. The third is not. Restoring the pre-2024 text does not "define 'sex' under Title IX to mean only biological sex recognized at birth", because the 2020 rule carries no such definition. The full text, read 2026-10-01, confirms it: the restored section 106.2 defines no "sex". The second Quote's day-one notice-and-comment did not happen either. The rule issued without notice and comment under 5 U.S.C. 553(a)(2), with good cause as an alternative, and took effect on publication.

  2. Partially done

    Executive Order 14201, "Keeping Men Out of Women's Sports", directed the Department to enforce Title IX against policies that allow males to compete in women's athletics — the biological-sex reading applied to one Title IX context, again without a rule.

  3. Partially done

    OCR's Dear Colleague Letter (superseding the January 31 letter) set out the enforcement position in full: the 2024 rule is void in every jurisdiction, the 2020 rule's definitions and procedural protections govern, and OCR must enforce Title IX consistent with Executive Order 14168's two-sex definition. This is enforcement policy, not the rulemaking the Mandate asks for — the Department has published no proposed or final Title IX rule since 2025-01-20, and the day-one notice-and-comment did not happen.

  4. Partially done

    The Department announced that the Office for Civil Rights would enforce the 2020 Title IX Rule, "returning to enforcing Title IX protections on the basis of biological sex". The 2024 rule was not rescinded by the Department: it had been vacated nationwide on 2025-01-09 in Tennessee v. Cardona, before this administration took office.

Research log

What was searched, and what didn’t count as evidence

Research notes

  • Resolved (review, 2026-10-01). FR 2026-19929, “Recodification of Title IX Rules”, is the Title IX rulemaking the negative search below did not find. It was published on 2026-09-29, after that search. The matcher did not propose it, because its title shares no phrase with this ask; the triage found it by reading every new rule’s title. The review read the full text (federalregister.gov raw text) and answers the triage’s three questions:
    1. No definition of “sex”. The restored §106.2 definitions run from “Title IX” to “Transition plan” and define no “sex”. The rule removes §§106.10, 106.47 and 106.48. The third object is unmet, so the item stays partial.
    2. No notice and comment. The rule says it is exempt under 5 U.S.C. 553(a)(2), and in the alternative finds good cause under 553(b)(B) and 553(d)(3), because the 2024 rule was vacated.
    3. Effective 2026-09-29, the day of publication.
  • Negative search (before 2026-09-29): a Federal Register full-text query for “Title IX” limited to Education Department rules and proposed rules since 2025-01-20 returns 21 documents, none of them a Title IX rulemaking (they are charter-school and grant notices, the accreditation and Title VI actions, and the OMB grants rule). Two negotiated-rulemaking notices (2025-04-04, 2026-01-27) cover Title IV student-aid and accreditation topics only.
  • Tennessee v. Cardona, No. 24-0072-DCR (E.D. Ky. Jan. 9, 2025), is the order that vacated the 2024 rule. It predates the tracking window (2025-01-20), so it cannot be Evidence here; the OCR letter is the allowlisted record of its effect. The Sixth Circuit appeal, TN v. Linda McMahon, Nos. 25-5205 and 25-5206 (docketed 2025-03-12), is a lead: https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/69731942/tn-v-linda-mcmahon/ (403 to automated fetches).
  • The Title IX regulations of other agencies are moving separately — the Department of Energy has repeatedly delayed its own direct final rule rescinding Title IX provisions (published 2025-05-16, effective date now 2026-12-28, FR 2026-13304). Not this Recommendation’s object.
  • H.R. 8781, the Title IX Clarification Act of 2026, would put the biological definition in the statute; it is tracked as #836.
Action
rescind
Object
Title IX regulations
ID
835