Equal Rights Advocates Condemns House Vote to Reverse Title IX Protections for Students

July 11. 2024

For Immediate Release
Jul 11, 2024

Media Contact
Nazirah Ahmad
[email protected]

ERA calls on the Senate to reject the resolution and stand with us in protecting every American student’s right to safe, discrimination-free schools.

On July 11, the U.S. House of Representatives voted to pass a resolution that would overturn key protections for students facing sexual violence, discrimination, and harassment.

The resolution aims to repeal the Biden Administration’s new Title IX regulations, which safeguard students from discrimination and gender-based violence, particularly LGBTQI+ students, women, girls, survivors of sexual violence, and pregnant and parenting students. To pass the resolution, the House relied on a method not frequently used by Congress until recently: invoking the Congressional Review Act, which grants Congress 60 days to overturn a federal rule and bars any future attempts by federal agencies to reinstate a similar rule.

“Our representatives should be working to make schools safer and more equitable. Instead, the lawmakers behind this resolution used every tool at their disposal to target LGBTQI+ students, girls, and children survivors of sexual violence across the country,” said Kel O’Hara, Senior Attorney for Policy & Education Equity at Equal Rights Advocates. “By evoking this method of legislating, these lawmakers have revealed just how desperate they are to permanently remove American student’s right to feel safe and supported at school.”

The new regulations that the House voted to overturn largely reversed the 2020 Trump Administration changes to Title IX, which weakened protections for survivors of sexual assault. The Biden Administration’s regulations provide clear and effective processes for addressing sexual harassment and assault, and they extend vital protections to LGBTQ+ students.

ERA joined more than 110 gender justice, civil rights, students’ rights, and LGBTQI+ organizations in urging members of Congress to oppose this harmful resolution. We call on the Senate to reject the resolution and to stand with us in protecting every American student’s right to safe, discrimination-free schools.