Court Vacates Biden's Title IX Rule Protecting LGBTQ+ Students Nationwide

In State of Tennessee v. Cardona, a coalition of states challenged the Department of Education's overhaul of Title IX, which among other changes defined sex-based discrimination to include gender identity and directed schools to treat harassment based on it as a civil-rights violation. Judge Danny Reeves of the Eastern District of Kentucky held that the department exceeded its statutory authority and that the rule conflicted with Title IX's text.

The court's remedy swept beyond the plaintiff states: it vacated the 2024 rule in its entirety and across the country, meaning no school anywhere would be governed by it. The Department of Education soon confirmed that enforcement would revert to the prior 2020 regulation, which does not extend explicit protections to gender identity.

The ruling reshaped the legal landscape for transgender students, removing the federal rule that many advocates had viewed as a foundation for challenging bathroom, pronoun, and athletics policies. Under the new administration, the department has since moved to formalize a narrower reading of Title IX tied to biological sex.

Protections for LGBTQ+ students now depend heavily on state law and on how courts read Title IX and the Constitution directly, a patchwork that varies sharply from state to state.