In a Notice (full text) to be published in the Federal Register on Dec. 26, the Department of Education withdrew a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking under Title IX on Sex-Related Eligibility Criteria for Male and Female Athletic Teams. The Rulemaking Notice was originally published 17 months ago. The proposed rule would have provided that criteria preventing a transgender student from participating on a team consistent with the student's gender identity would need to be substantially related to an important educational objective, and would need to minimize harms to the affected transgender students, The Department received more than 150,000 comments on the Proposed Rule during the 30-day comment period. In withdrawing the rule, DOE said:
In light of the comments received and ... various pending court cases, the Department has determined not to regulate on this issue at this time.
