New Biden executive order calls for review of Title IX rule

Higher Ed Dive 

Jeremy Bauer-Wolf

March 8, 2021

Dive Brief:

• President Joe Biden signed an executive order Monday directing the U.S. Department of Education to evaluate whether the agency’s policies align with the administration’s promise to provide a college education free of sex-based discrimination.

• The order calls for a review of the Trump administration’s Title IX regulation, which covers how colleges must investigate and respond to sexual misconduct. The rule remains deeply unpopular among sexual violence prevention activists and higher education leaders.

• Biden has pledged to undo the rule, but the legal route the administration would take to do so isn’t yet clear.

Dive Insight:

Biden released a second executive order on Monday — International Women’s Day — that establishes a Gender Policy Council within the White House. It will attempt to advance gender-equitable policies and address systemic discrimination across the federal government, an administration official said on a call with reporters Sunday night.

Issues of gender equity and sexual violence have long been priorities for Biden. He was one of the faces of the Obama administration’s “It’s On Us” campaign to end sexual assault on college campuses. He also helped write the Violence Against Women Act — a cornerstone federal law that aims to protect women against gender-based assaults — while he was in the U.S. Senate in the 1990s.

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