House moves to block Biden's Title IX rule supporting LGBTQ+ students, assault victims

The conservative majority in the U.S. House of Representatives on Thursday took a swing at President Joe Biden’s far-reaching policy to stiffen the consequences for sex-based misconduct in schools.

The House measure, which would prevent Biden's revisions of Title IX from taking effect, is unlikely to pass in the Senate, where Democrats have a slim majority. And it faces a certain veto from the president. But the resolution added momentum to the conservative attack against the Biden administration’s plan to codify protections for LGBTQ+ students and reverse Trump-era guidelines for adjudicating sexual harassment and assault cases on campus.

The House passed Thursday's rebuke of the rule on a party-line vote, 210 for and 205 against. Republicans, including Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-N.C., the chair of the House education committee, focused their support on the concept of safety for women in sports.

“By adding 'gender identity' to Title IX’s protected classes, the radical left and the Biden administration will tear down women’s sports and eliminate safe and private spaces for girls,” Foxx said.

On a call with reporters Wednesday, Rep. Kathy Manning, D-N.C., derided the measure as a “dangerous step in the wrong direction.” Rep. Suzanne Bonamici, D-Ore., accused Republicans of jeopardizing the well-being of sexual misconduct victims while enabling discrimination against LGBTQ+ students.

“This is just an example of the narrow-minded agenda that they have, to take us back to the days when people were in the closet and afraid to be their true selves,” she said.

Read more about Title IX's future: The Supreme Court curbed federal oversight of schools. It's a big deal.

Kentucky judge denies Education Department's Title IX request

The congressional punch followed another legal setback for Biden on Wedneday when a federal judge in Kentucky denied a request from the Education Department to partially halt a ban on the guidance nearly a month ago. The preliminary injunction bars the revised rules from being implemented in August in six states.

While Republicans say the new guidance would upend women’s sports, the Education Department says that's not how the rule would play out. The department has kept its Title IX regulations relating to athletics separate from the guidance that would take effect in August. A different rule moving through another approval process from the broader regulations takes a nuanced approach to the participation of transgender athletes in school sports.

That guidance would minimize discrimination while giving schools leeway to set separate athletic standards for students of different ages and levels of competition, according to the Biden administration.

The more sweeping Title IX rules are set to be implemented next month. But several preliminary injunctions have blocked that from happening in more than a dozen states. The full scope of those bans remains unclear and will depend on how the litigation plays out in the coming months.

Zachary Schermele covers education and breaking news for USA TODAY. You can reach him by email at [email protected]. Follow him on X at @ZachSchermele.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: House passes measure to block Biden's Title IX rule