WASHINGTON (NEXSTAR) — The Biden administration is redefining sex discrimination to offer new protections to LGBTQ students and staff at school.
Catherine Lhamon the Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights at the Department of Education calls the Title IX updates which also expand avenues to report sexual misconduct at schools, “the most comprehensive since 1975.”
For the first time all schools and educational programs that receive federal funding will face consequences if they fail to “promptly” respond to discrimination complaints based on gender, gender identity, or sexual orientation.
The Department of Education received more than 240,000 public comments before releasing the rule Friday.
“School communities, parents, students, educators, districts, universities asked for change to make it more malleable, more flexible, more responsive, more protective, and we think we meet the moment,” said Lhamon.
The new rules go into effect August 1st and extend to afterschool programs and “all areas within the schools’ control,” including locker rooms and bathrooms.
The rule published Friday reads, “with some limited exceptions, schools must not separate or treat students differently based on sex in a manner that subjects them to more than de minimis harm and that preventing a student from participating in school consistent with their gender identity causes such harm.”
“If a student experiences a hostile environment at school based on sex, then the law protects against that hostile environment,” said Lhamon.
Conservatives including Missouri Senator Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), took to Twitter to call the rules “insane” and “extreme.”
The rules make no mention about how schools should handle sports.
Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R-Iowa) says schools need to be able to ban trans gender women and girls from playing in women’s and girls’ sports.
“I’m hoping that they follow the science…until they have rule, the rule that they put forward will stand, and there will be confusion and misinterpretation,” Miller-Meeks said.
The Department of Education says it is working on a separate plan to tackle what it calls the complex issue of sports.
