WoLF Submits Freedom of Information Act Request in Response to Disastrous Title IX Rules

Did the Department of Ed. misrepresent the views of commenters? 

On Friday, the Department of Education released new rules for interpreting and enforcing Title IX, which effectively replace “sex” with “gender identity.” The new rules follow a 2022 Notice of Proposed Rulemaking which received over 240,000 comments from the public.  

WoLF and multiple other organizations submitted comments against this proposed rule and engaged heavily through the rulemaking process to advocate for women and girls’ right to single-sex educational opportunities. However, the final rule which was released last week completely ignores many of the concerns raised by feminists, women’s group, parents, athletes, and women across the United States who spoke up against this new rule. 

Agencies are required to review every comment they receive on a regulation. Yet, the department’s discussion in the rule of those for and against including gender identity in discrimination based on sex appears skewed in favor of the gender identity camp.

For example, here's how the rule describes commenters submitting personal experiences of bullying based on sexual orientation and gender identity:

Commenters from more than 40 States in all regions of the United States and in communities across the political spectrum shared their experiences as members of the LGBTQI+ community, or as parents, teachers, and friends of LGBTQI+ individuals. They described bullying and harassment of students based on sexual orientation and gender identity that ranged from single interactions with peers to systemic concerns such as constant verbal harassment, bullying, and threats of physical violence that are often ignored or excused by recipients from early elementary school through graduate school.

In contrast, the rule minimizes the concerns of commenters opposed to the inclusion of gender identity, discussing only the experiences of three grandmothers and "commenters worried that the proposed regulations would negatively impact the developmental progress of their children.”

The Department of Education wants us to believe there is a groundswell of support for including gender identity in the rule and little opposition. We decided to find out if that’s really true.

WoLF submitted a Freedom of Information Act Request Tuesday, below, to ascertain where the 240,000 comments submitted on this NPRM really landed. Stay tuned - we'll publish the results right here!

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TEXT OF FOIA REQUEST:

We file this request under the Freedom of Information Act to request the following records related to comments on the proposed rule, Nondiscrimination on the Basis of Sex in Education Programs or Activities Receiving Federal Financial Assistance, 87 Federal Register 41390 (July 12, 2024):

All documents, including any memoranda, emails, software-generated analysis, in any form, including any chart, spreadsheet, presentation, or word document, whether generated internally at the Department of Education or externally, containing the following:

1.      A tabulation, count, or description of all comments received from the public that address the proposed rule's inclusion of the term "gender identity" within the scope of "discrimination of the basis of sex," expressed in any manner including:

a.      the absolute number of such comments, and/or

b.      a percentage of the total number of comments received on the proposed rule; and

2.      A tabulation, count, or description of the number of comments within the comments described under header 1 (above) that express support for inclusion of the term "gender identity" within the scope of "discrimination of the basis of sex," expressed in any manner including:

a.      the absolute number of such comments, and/or

b.      a percentage of all comments described under header 1; and

3.      A tabulation, count, or description of the number of comments within the comments described under header 1 (above) that oppose inclusion of the term "gender identity" within the scope of "discrimination of the basis of sex," expressed in any manner including:

a.      the absolute number of such comments, and/or

b.      the percentage of all comments described under header 1.

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WoLF has been fighting these proposed changes from the first day President Biden took office. When you support WoLF, you champion our radical feminist mission to restore, protect, and advance the sex-based rights of women and girls using legal argument, policy advocacy, and public education!

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