U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona denied claims on Thursday that the long-awaited Title IX athletics final rule is being delayed because of the presidential election.
Rather, he said, it’s because the department wanted to release the broader Title IX rule as soon as possible for schools that were awaiting its release, and to protect victims of sexual violence, while officials worked their way through comments on the proposed athletics rule.
“The Title IX [athletics] proposal was submitted nine months later. It would have been great to put them together. But the reality is we would have had to delay the other one to get through this one,” he said during the Education Writers Association’s National Seminar in Las Vegas last week. “It’s not because of the election.”
The department has been silent on the final rule’s release date after delaying its release multiple times in the past year. However, it has repeatedly said the athletics rule’s delay is due to the high volume of feedback received during the public comment period. The agency has yet to send the rule to the Office of Management and Budget for review. That step, required by federal regulatory procedure,can take up to 120 days before regulations are published in the Federal Register.
“We’re working aggressively on that,” said Cardona on Thursday, highlighting that the rule received over 150,000 public comments. “But there’s no update today, when it’s going to be released.”
Cardona’s comments contradict a report in The Washington Post last March that putting off the athletics rule was a political strategy.
The proposed athletics rule and the administration’s overall approach toward transgender student inclusion has already received strong pushback from the GOP. Republican leaders and policymakers claim the proposed athletics rule violates women’s rights and directly contradicts Title IX sex discrimination protections.
The athletics proposal would for the first time set a framework for school policies on including transgender students in sports activities. It would allow schools to exclude transgender students from teams aligning with their gender identities under certain circumstances, but would prohibit blanket bans of transgender athletes on those teams.
Some Title IX experts said the proposed rule took the middle ground, almost certainly guaranteeing lawsuits from those both in support of and against transgender students.
In fact, despite the final rule not even being released yet, lawsuits have been filed against the broader Title IX rule over transgender students on athletic teams. The broader rule, issued April 19, more generally protects LGBTQ+ students from sex discrimination.
The proposed athletics rule would directly contradict state policies in many conservative states, which have blanket bans on transgender students playing on teams aligning with their gender identities.