Trump's Energy Department proposes dismantling parts of Title IX allowing girls on boys' teams

The Hill

a day ago

The Trump administration has leaned heavily on Title IX in its effort to purge sports of transgender women and girls, but attorneys and experts on the 1972 civil rights law say its latest move will disproportionately affect girls who are not transgender.
The Department of Energy is preparing to roll back a portion of Title IX requiring that some sports be open to 'the underrepresented sex,' a cornerstone of the federal law against sex discrimination in schools that President Trump's administration has said conflicts with his executive order to restrict trans athletes' participation.
The department plans to rescind a rule that has for decades allowed girls to try out for boys' sports teams or vice versa when there is no equivalent team at their school, with some exceptions for contact sports. The move would only affect schools and education programs that receive funding from the Energy Department.
The department, which traditionally does not regulate or enforce Title IX, plans to rescind a rule that has for decades allowed girls to try out for boys' sports teams or vice versa when there is no equivalent female team at their school, with some exceptions for contact sports.
The Women's Sports Foundation, a nonprofit organization founded by Billie Jean King, a foundational figure in women's fight for parity in sports in the 1960s and 70s, said the Energy Department's proposal threatens to unravel years of progress and limit athletic opportunities for girls.
'To uphold the spirit and promise of Title IX, we urge for it to be withdrawn,' the group said in an emailed statement to The Hill.
In justifying its proposal, announced last month, the Energy Department said athletics rules allowing girls to compete on boys' teams 'ignore differences between the sexes which are grounded in fundamental and incontrovertible reality,' language from Trump's day one executive order proclaiming the federal government recognizes only two sexes, male and female.
Rescinding the regulation, the department said, aligns with another Trump order declaring the U.S. opposes 'male competitive participation in women's sports' as a matter of 'safety, fairness, dignity and truth.'
The Education Department, which has historically enforced Title IX, has launched more than two dozen investigations this year into states, school districts and sports associations that allow trans girls to compete against and alongside girls who are not transgender. In announcing that the department would recognize June, which is traditionally Pride Month, as 'Title IX Month,' Education Secretary Linda McMahon said the administration 'will fight on every front to protect women's and girls' sports.'
The changes the Department of Energy proposed would do little to further that objective, said James Nussbaum, an attorney focused on education and sports law at Church, Church, Hittle, and Antrim in Indiana.
'I'm scratching my head for the motivation behind [rescinding the rule] because they mention the 'Keeping Men Out of Women's Sports' executive order, but it won't really apply in the vast majority of those cases because [the rule] only allows a person to participate in a sport of the other sex on two conditions,' Nussbaum said. 'One, the school doesn't already offer that sport for their sex, and two, they're the 'underrepresented sex' historically, and that's just not male sports at the vast majority of schools.'
While no high schools in the U.S. offer an all-girls tackle football team, for example, more than 4,000 girls played 11-person tackle football on boys' teams for the 2023-2024 school year, according to the National Federation of State High Schools Association.
An Energy Department spokesperson did not return a request for comment.
Government agencies looking to change federal regulations must typically do so through a lengthy administrative process beginning with advance notice of proposed rulemaking and a public comment period generally lasting 30-60 days.
The Energy Department's Title IX proposal, submitted as a 'direct final rule,' (DFR) would skirt traditional regulatory channels, allowing it to take effect automatically on July 15 absent 'significant adverse comments,' the deadline for which to submit is Monday.
DFRs are exempt from parts of the standard rulemaking process, with which federal agencies must comply under the Administrative Procedures Act. Agencies may use DFRs when addressing issues that are technical, uncontroversial or unlikely to elicit a significant adverse response.
'None of that applies in this situation,' said Shiwali Patel, senior director of safe and inclusive schools at the National Women's Law Center. 'These are regulations that are long-standing, that have existed for decades.'
That the athletics proposal originated in the Department of Energy rather than the Department of Education, whose Office for Civil Rights (OCR) is typically responsible for regulating and enforcing Title IX, is unusual, legal experts said.
Other agencies providing federal financial assistance to educational institutions also bear some enforcement responsibility, and under the Trump administration, the Health and Human Services and Justice departments have moved to carry out the law. In April, the departments of Justice and Education launched a joint special investigations task force to streamline the government's handling of Title IX inquiries, citing ballooning caseloads.
'Generally, things have followed kind of a principle of logic — you stick to the things you're experts in, you regulate the things that you are tasked with regulating,' said Maha Ibrahim, program managing attorney for Equal Rights Advocates, a nonprofit gender justice and women's rights organization.
In the past, she said, federal agencies such as the Energy Department might propose updating their Title IX regulations to mirror those issued by the Education Department to ensure cross-agency consistency, but they don't usually 'step out of their lane and do the initial regulatory change.'
'This is unusual in an alarming way,' she said.
The Department of Energy, with a larger budget and greater resources to conduct investigations, was perhaps the better choice to introduce the proposal over the Education Department, which Trump has sought to close, Ibrahim said. In March, the agency shuttered seven of its 12 civil rights enforcement offices and fired hundreds of workers, K-12 Dive reported.
Through its Renew America's Schools Program, the Energy Department has invested $372.5 million in K-12 public school districts nationwide. The department also provides over $3.5 billion annually through grant programs to more than 300 colleges and universities.
While the Energy Department's proposal would only directly affect schools that receive its funding, the plan would create inconsistencies among federal agencies with Title IX regulations, confusing schools and potentially hampering students' and educators' ability to file claims, said Patel, of the National Women's Law Center.
The organization, which advocates for women's and LGBTQ rights, plans to submit a comment opposing the rule change, she said. More than 1,800 comments have already been submitted, but their content is not publicly available.
The Title IX proposal is part of a larger Department of Energy push to quickly eliminate or reduce dozens of regulations that it said in May 'are driving up costs and lowering quality of life for the American people.'
'While it would normally take years for the Department of Energy to remove just a handful of regulations, the Trump Administration assembled a team working around the clock to reduce costs and deliver results for the American people in just over 110 days,' Energy Secretary Chris Wright said last month.
The department's deregulatory efforts include terminating or modifying 47 rules that would, once finalized, free up an estimated $11 billion and cut more than 125,000 words from the Code of Federal Regulations, the department said. Rules on the chopping block include diversity, equity, and inclusion requirements for federal grant recipients, which the Energy Department has called 'unscientific.'