The Biden administration sent a “Dear Educator” memo to schools across the country on Wednesday outlining how a recent Supreme Court ruling extends Title IX protections to gay and transgender students.
In the letter, Department of Education acting Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Suzanne Goldberg highlighted a “selection of resources available for [schools] to ensure that the education environment you provide is free from sex discrimination in all forms.”
“Among these resources is our recent public notice clarifying Title IX’s protection against discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity,” the letter reads. “The U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights works to ensure that Title IX’s mandate protects students in all aspects of their education, including recruitment, admissions, and counseling; financial assistance; athletics; protections from sex-based harassment, which encompasses sexual assault and other forms of sexual violence; treatment of pregnant and parenting students; discipline; equal access to classes and activities; and treatment of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and intersex (LGBTQI+) students.”
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The letter cites Supreme Court’s decision in Bostock v. Clayton County, “which clarifies that Title IX’s protection against sex discrimination encompasses discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. Specifically, OCR clarifies that the Supreme Court’s decision in Bostock applies to the Department’s interpretation of Title IX.”
“OCR will fully enforce Title IX to prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity in education programs and activities that receive Federal financial assistance from the Department,” Goldberg adds. “We at OCR share with you the responsibility to ensure that all students have equal access to education, regardless of race, color, national origin, sex, disability, or age.”
The letter provided teachers and students several resources meant to ensure that discrimination is not taking place in learning environments and promised to clarify “how OCR interprets schools’ existing obligations under the 2020 amendments, including the areas in which schools have discretion in their procedures for responding to reports of sexual harassment.”
The letter, sent on the 49th anniversary of Title IX’s codification, comes after gay and transgender students sued the Department of Education in March for failing to uphold full Title IX protections for all students.
The suit specifically called on the administration to “put an end to the U.S. Department of Education’s complicity in the abuses and unsafe conditions thousands of LGBTQ+ students endure at hundreds of taxpayer-funded, religious colleges and universities.”
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“The U.S. Department of Education is duty-bound by Title IX and the U.S. Constitution to protect sexual and gender minority students at taxpayer-funded colleges and universities, including private and religious educational institutions that receive federal funding,” the suit claimed. “The religious exemption to Title IX, however, seemingly permits the Department to breach its duty as to the more than 100,000 sexual and gender minority students attending religious colleges and universities where discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity is codified in campus policies and openly practiced.”
