The department said that discrimination against transgender students was prohibited under the law, a reversal of its Trump-era position.
WASHINGTON — The Education Department said on Wednesday that transgender students were protected under Title IX, a law that prohibits sex-based discrimination in federally funded schools, reversing a Trump-era policy that effectively had said the opposite.
“We just want to double down on our expectations,” Miguel A. Cardona, the education secretary, said in an interview. “Students cannot be discriminated against because of their sexual orientation or their gender identity.”
The decision was rooted in a Supreme Court ruling last year that determined that protections in the Civil Rights Act against discrimination in the workplace extended to gay and transgender people, and similar interpretations of the ruling have appeared in agencies throughout President Biden’s government. His administration has conducted a sweeping effort to rescind, revise or revoke a number of Trump-era policies that rolled back transgender rights. Continue reading.
