Women Are Going Backwards under the Biden Administration

By Allison Schuster

This weekend marked a significant milestone in women’s history. A milestone backwards, that is. 

The Biden Department of Education last week announced major changes to Title IX that set women back decades. The 1972 law banned discrimination on the basis of sex in educational institutions that receive federal money. 

This victory half a century ago was the result of women who fought for fairness in athletics. They fought for their own spaces as a necessary way to guarantee their equal opportunity. 

A separate female athletic division allows women to compete on a fair playing field, without larger and more dangerous men destroying their odds. From birth, men on average have a host of physical advantages, such as larger wingspan and muscle mass, over women. 

In women’s private spaces, such as locker rooms, bathrooms, and sororities, Title IX ensured women could live without fear of male voyeurism or predation. 

Title IX offers safety, fairness, and opportunity. It secured women’s rights the way early feminists could have only dreamed of. 

Today, however, women have taken a back seat to men once again. This time, it’s men living in the delusion, celebrated by culture, that they are women born in the wrong body. 

When these regulations go into effect on August 1, women will be stripped of more than just their safe spaces. The law’s addition of “gender identity” as a new protected class directly harms women and their achievements under Title IX. 

The new regulations will also undo due process safeguards implemented by the Trump administration for those accused of sexual misconduct on college campuses. A new offense could include accidentally using someone’s non-preferred pronouns. If the definition of “sex-based discrimination” now includes gender identity, then acknowledging a person’s God-given sex could be deemed harassment. Instead of guarding women from discrimination, the revised regulations welcome injustice against women and those advocating for truth. 

As a former track and field runner, tennis player, and sorority member, I can attest that female-only programs are empowering. My time on the track and tennis court competing against female opponents fostered sportsmanship in me and empowered me to work hard. This experience was derived from it being a female-only arena, as I rested in knowing no male intruder could hamper my chances of success. 

Off the field, my sorority home served as a place of solace where I could return to for privacy with sisters after class and grow my college female friendships.

The revised regulations certainly aren’t what I, my former teammates, and my sorority sisters want. The Biden administration clearly doesn’t care about what women think, however, considering the record number of comments it received since the drafting of the proposed rules two years ago. Americans still strongly support protecting women, and this administration is radically out of touch in ignoring their comments. 

Several organizations who left comments during that period, including the Independent Women’s Forum and Independent Women’s Law Center, have taken legal action against the Department of Education. They argue the reinterpretation of Title IX undermines its original purpose of providing equal opportunities for women.

Riley Gaines has been an outspoken opponent of the changes to Title IX after her personal experience competing against a male swimmer at the NCCA women’s championship in 2021.

“The president and his administration can’t act like they care about women or our opportunities and then go and wipe out women’s protections under the country’s landmark sex equality law…” said Riley Gaines, former D1 swimmer and host of Outkick’s Gaines for Girls podcast. “With its new Title IX rewrite, the Biden administration is unilaterally erasing fifty years of equal opportunity law for women.”

Allison Schuster is a communications strategist and policy advisor to the Center for Education Opportunity for the America First Policy Institute, as well as a contributor for The Federalist. She lives in Washington, D.C. but escapes to New York whenever possible.