Department of Education ends Obama-, Biden-era enforcement of trans ideology in educational agreements

The Trump administration terminated six resolutions that required schools to uphold trans-ideology in a “heavy-handed manipulation” of anti-discrimination laws, the Department of Education announced Monday.

“Today, the Trump Administration is removing the unnecessary and unlawful burdens that prior Administrations imposed on schools in its relentless pursuit of a radical transgender agenda,” Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Kimberly Richey said in a press release.

The Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) creates resolution agreements to resolve cases of noncompliance with federal civil rights law and requires specific actions to remedy such violations, according to the press release. But under previous agreements, the Biden and Obama administrations required five school districts and a college to uphold resolution agreements after the schools, in separate cases, allegedly violated Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, which forbids discrimination on the basis of sex.

However, OCR is withdrawing portions of these agreements, saying previous administrations forced an “ideologically-driven interpretation” of Title IX by interpreting sex as “gender identity.” The Biden administration’s 2024 Title IX rules added “gender identity” under non-discrimination protections, but in 2025 a federal court ruled this expansion illegal, according to the release.

Certain resolutions required these schools to hold faculty trainings on gender identity, call students by their preferred pronouns, and allow students to use bathrooms that align with their gender identity, not their biological sex, AP News reports. The Department of Education called such requirements “illegal,” posting a video on X warning of the dangers such ideology inflicts on girls in bathrooms, locker rooms and sport competitions.

“Today is yet another demonstration of the Trump Administration’s commitment to uphold the law, protect our students, and restore common sense,” Richey said.

When President Donald Trump took office in January 2025, he returned to his previous administration’s Title IX interpretation, which forbids discrimination on the basis of biological sex. Trump also signed various executive orders that promised to “restore biological truth to the federal government” and to “keep men out of women’s sports.”

“While previous Administrations launched Title IX investigations based on ‘misgendering,’ the Trump Administration is investigating allegations of girls and women being injured by men on their sports team or feeling violated by men in their intimate spaces,” Richey said.

“Sex” in Title IX has always “referred to biology,” Alliance Defending Freedom President and CEO Kristen Waggoner said in a post on X.

“It’s good to once again have a Department of Education that respects reality, protects girls, and enforces Title IX as it was written,” she said.