President Joe Biden is abandoning his efforts to provide some protections for transgender student-athletes and cancel student loans for more than 38 million Americans, to prevent President-elect Donald Trump from using them again. The pending regulations are the first step in the administration’s broader plan to eliminate them. To achieve your goals.
The White House expects to withdraw incomplete rules at several agencies if there is not enough time to finalize them before Trump takes office. If the proposed regulations were left in their current state, the next administration would be able to rewrite them and push its agenda more quickly.
As Biden’s pending regulations are withdrawn, there’s nothing stopping Trump from pursuing his own regulations on the same issues when he returns to the White House, but he’ll have to start over in a process that could take months or years. Can also be
As for the regulation on transgender students, the Education Department said it was withdrawing the proposal because of ongoing litigation over whether Title IX, the landmark law preventing gender discrimination, would address gender identity issues. How will it be handled? In addition, the department said there are 150,000 public comments with a variety of feedback, including suggestions for amendments that need to be considered.
At this point, the department wrote, “We do not intend to issue a final rule.”
Trump spokeswoman Carolyn Levitt accused the White House of “adding more red tape and making it more difficult for him to govern.”
Kate Shaw, who served in the White House counsel’s office under President Barack Obama, said it’s not unusual for the administration to speed up or slow down the rule. It’s more common for the federal government to rush to finalize regulations during a transition period, but that can be difficult when time is crunched, he said.
“If you don’t start it early enough, you’re not going to be able to wrap it up,” he said.
Biden’s rule on transgender sports was proposed in 2023 but has been delayed several times. It was supposed to follow a broader rule that extended civil rights protections to LGBTQ+ students under Title IX.
Sports law would have prevented schools from banning transgender athletes outright, allowing limitations for certain reasons — for example, if it was a matter of “fairness” in competition or reducing the risk of injury. to do
Biden’s proposal left both sides of the issue begging for more. Advocates said it did not go far enough to protect transgender students from school policies that could unfairly exclude them. Opponents said it failed to ensure protection and justice for girls.
In April, a bill passed the House of Representatives on a party-line vote that would have barred transgender people whose sex they were assigned at birth. were assigned, they did not compete in girls’ or women’s sports teams in federally aided schools and colleges; could The legislation, introduced by House Republicans, never advanced in the current Democratic-led Senate, and Biden said he would Will veto.
Biden’s code sat on the backburner through the presidential campaign as the issue became a topic of Republican outrage. Trump campaigned on a promise to ban transgender athletes, promising to “keep men out of women’s sports.”
Had Biden’s proposal been finalized, it was certain to face legal challenges from conservatives who said Biden overstepped his authority. Biden’s broader policy on Title IX, which was finalized in April, faced legal challenges that prevented it from taking effect in 26 states.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.