The MAGA movement is recruiting a new generation… and they’re doing it through the manosphere. From Nick Fuentes to Andrew Tate, a growing army of Trump-aligned influencers is targeting Gen Z boys who feel left behind… promising power, purpose, and belonging while feeding resentment and hate. This isn’t random… it’s a strategy. The “alpha” pipeline is reshaping the Republican Party from the inside out, one lonely teenager at a time. Watch how these extremist influencers are using religion to turn alienation into political weaponry… and building Trump’s future GOP.
Tag: target
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The fifty per cent participation target is no more. Again.
Dare we say he felt the hand of history on his shoulder?
In his Labour Party Conference speech Prime Minister Keir Starmer set a new participation target for participation in education at level 4 and above (including higher education, further education, and some apprenticeships) for young people. He said:
Two thirds of our children should either go to university or take on a gold standard apprenticeship
As subsequently briefed, the target (which replaces, somehow, the old 50 per cent target from the Blair years) relates to higher skills, either through university, further education or taking on a gold standard apprenticeship. It will include at least ten percent of young people pursuing higher technical education or apprenticeships that the economy needs by 2040, a near doubling of today’s figure.
Alongside a restatement of recent further education policies (£800m extra into funding for 16-19 year olds in FE next year, and measures to make FE “world class”) Starmer couched the target in the language of “respect”, drawing on the now familiar tale of his father, the toolmaker.
Because if you are a kid or a parent of a kid who chooses an apprenticeship, what does it say to you? Do we genuinely, as a country – afford them the same respect?
The numbers now?
We don’t really have the data at hand to judge progress against the target to date – we would imagine a new measure would be developed. The press release points to the most recent data we have relating to participation in any level four education before the age of 25 (CHEP-25 “all level four”): around half of the cohort that turned 15 in 2012-13 (and thus might have entered university in 2015-16) participated in the kind of provision the prime minister talked about. As this cohort turned 25 in 2022-23, we do not yet have data for future cohorts.
In the last two recruitment cycles (2024, and 2025) 37 per cent of 18 year olds in England entered university directly from school via UCAS. This equates to 240,510 young people in 2024 and 249,780 in 2025 – out of an England domiciled 18 year old population of 650,710 in 2024 and 675,710 in 2025.
In contrast just 15,085 adults (19+) participated in-year in provision at level four or above in the further education and skills sector during 2023-24. And there were 100,490 higher (level 4) apprenticeship starts in the same year.
The uncancellable target
It was originally proposed by Tony Blair during his 1999 leader’s address to conference that the government should have:
a target of 50 per cent of young adults going into higher education in the next century.
And this plan was reiterated in the 2001 manifesto, and the promise maintained in both 2005 and 2010 :
It is time for an historic commitment to open higher education to half of all young people before they are 30, combined with increased investment to maintain academic standards.
The original target date was 2010, but by 2008 then universities minister John Denham had already conceded that this target would not be met. And it was not met under a Labour government.
It was never universally popular – in 2009 the CBI made a high profile call to drop the 50 per cent aspiration. Under Coalition Prime Minister David Cameron, then Business Secretary Vince Cable was the first of many to formally cancel the target. On 12 October 2010 he told the House of Commons that:
We must not perpetuate the idea, encouraged by the pursuit of a misguided 50% participation target, that the only valued option for an 18-year-old is a three-year academic course at university. Vocational training, including apprenticeships, can be just as valuable as a degree, if not more so
Which you’d imagine would be the end of it, a non-binding (it never featured in legislation) aspiration set by the previous administration rejected by a new minister.
Cancel culture
As the magic figure approached (the goal was achieved in 2019) the general disapproval of the long-scrapped target shifted into outright hostility. By 2017 Nick Boles (remember him?) was not outside the political mainstream in saying:
The policy of unbridled expansion has now reached its logical conclusion.
All to no avail. By 2020 the ever-thoughtful Gavin Williamson seemed he was making it into a personal vendetta:
When Tony Blair uttered that 50 per cent target for university attendance, he cast aside the other 50 per cent. It was a target for the sake of a target, not with a purpose… As Education Secretary, I will stand for the forgotten 50 per cent.
While former universities minister Chris Skidmore was characteristically a little more measured in his critique. Just about the only politician willing to stick up for the idea was Tony Blair himself, who in 2022 backed calls for 70 per cent of young people to enter higher education.
By this point, Rishi Sunak had become Prime Minister, and was telling the 2023 Conservative conference that:
As he renewed another familiar attack on “rip off degrees”. This brought about a robust response from Keir Starmer as leader of the opposition:
I never thought I would hear a modern Conservative Prime Minister say that 50 per cent of our children going to university was a “false dream”. My Dad felt the disrespect of vocational skills all his life. But the solution is not and never will be levelling-down the working class aspiration to go to university.
If anything, Starmer missed the opportunity at that stage to point out the volume of vocational going on in universities – but that probably speaks to the polling and public perception of “universities” that reinforces the challenge the sector has in surfacing it all.
Delivery, delivery, delivery
Targets and aspirations are all very well, but you would expect a government as focused on “delivery” as our current one to have a clear plan to drive up participation. And though welcome, the previously announced funding for further education is not it.
Driving up participation to such a level is far beyond what can be achieved by tweaks around apprenticeship incentives or even the roll-out of the (surprisingly unpopular) Lifelong Learning Entitlement. We are promised more details about how it’s going to work in the forthcoming post-16 education white paper.
History tells us that the majority of any increase in participation at level 4 will come from the efforts of our universities, through new courses and innovative delivery modes. And this will take participation in higher education far above the 50 per cent target.
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Feds Target Harvard’s Accreditation, Foreign Student Records
Harvard president Alan Garber at commencement.
Libby O’Neill/Getty Images
In the latest volley in the Trump administration’s war with Harvard University, federal agencies told Harvard’s accreditor the university is violating antidiscrimination laws, while Immigration and Customs Enforcement will subpoena Harvard’s “records, communications, and other documents relevant to the enforcement of immigration laws since January 1, 2020.”
The Departments of Education, Health and Human Services, and Homeland Security announced these moves Wednesday in news releases replete with condemnations from cabinet officials. The pressure comes as Harvard still refuses to bow to all of the Trump administration’s demands from April, which include banning admission of international students “hostile to the American values and institutions inscribed in the U.S. Constitution and Declaration of Independence, including students supportive of terrorism or anti-Semitism.” In May, DHS tried to stop Harvard from enrolling international students by stripping it of its Student and Exchange Visitor Program certification, but a judge has blocked that move.
Education Secretary Linda McMahon said in a Wednesday statement, “By allowing antisemitic harassment and discrimination to persist unchecked on its campus, Harvard University has failed in its obligation to students, educators, and American taxpayers. The Department of Education expects the New England Commission of Higher Education to enforce its policies and practices.” (Only the accreditor can find a college in violation of its policies.)
Trump officials said last week that Harvard is violating Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits discrimination based on shared ancestry, including antisemitism. They notified that accrediting agency of the HHS Office for Civil Rights’ finding that Harvard is displaying “deliberate indifference” to discrimination against Jewish and Israeli students.
HHS’s Notice of Violation said multiple sources “present a grim reality of on-campus discrimination that is pervasive, persistent, and effectively unpunished.” Wednesday’s release from HHS said the investigation grew from a review of Harvard Medical School “based on reports of antisemitic incidents during its 2024 commencement ceremony,” into a review of the whole institution from Oct. 7, 2023, through the present.
HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said that “when an institution—no matter how prestigious—abandons its mission and fails to protect its students, it forfeits the legitimacy that accreditation is designed to uphold. HHS and the Department of Education will actively hold Harvard accountable through sustained oversight until it restores public trust and ensures a campus free of discrimination.”
The Trump administration also notified Columbia University’s accreditor after it concluded Columbia committed a similar violation of federal civil rights law. The accreditor, the Middle States Commission on Higher Education, then told Columbia that its accreditation could be in jeopardy.
DHS’s subpoena announcement is the latest move in its targeting of Harvard over its international students, who comprise more than a quarter of its enrollment.
DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a release, “We tried to do things the easy way with Harvard. Now, through their refusal to cooperate, we have to do things the hard way. Harvard, like other universities, has allowed foreign students to abuse their visa privileges and advocate for violence and terrorism on campus.”
DHS didn’t provide Inside Higher Ed information on what specific records ICE is subpoenaing. It said in its release that “this comes after the university repeatedly refused past non-coercive requests to hand over the required information for its Student Visitor and Exchange Program [sic] certification.”
The release said DHS Secretary Kristi Noem “demanded Harvard provide information about the criminality and misconduct of foreign students on its campus” back in April. The release further said that other universities “should take note of Harvard’s actions, and the repercussions, when considering whether or not to comply with similar requests.”
Harvard pushed back in statements of its own Wednesday. It called the DHS subpoenas “unwarranted” but said it “will continue to cooperate with lawful requests and obligations.”
“The administration’s ongoing retaliatory actions come as Harvard continues to defend itself and its students, faculty, and staff against harmful government overreach aimed at dictating whom private universities can admit and hire, and what they can teach,” one Harvard statement said. “Harvard remains unwavering in its efforts to protect its community and its core principles against unfounded retribution by the federal government.”
If Harvard were to lose its accreditation, it would be cut off from federal student aid. In another statement, Harvard officials say they are complying with the New England Commission of Higher Education’s standards “maintaining its accreditation uninterrupted since its initial review in 1929.”
Neither the Trump administration nor Larry Schall, president of NECHE, provided the letter the administration wrote to the commission. Schall told Inside Higher Ed the commission will request a response from Harvard within 30 days and that, plus the results of the federal investigation, will be presented to the commission at its next regularly scheduled meeting, currently set for September.
“We have processes we follow,” Schall said. “We follow them whether it’s Harvard or some other institution … Our processes are consistent and actually directed by federal regulation.”
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Same old playbook, new target: AI chatbots
Chatbots are already transforming how people access information, express themselves, and connect with others. From personal finance to mental health, these tools are becoming an everyday part of digital life. But as their use grows, so does the urgency to protect the First Amendment rights of both developers and users.
That’s because some state lawmakers are pursuing a familiar regulatory approach: requiring things like blanket age verification, rigid time limits, and mandated lockouts on use. But like other means of digital communication, the development and use of chatbots have First Amendment protection, so any efforts to regulate them must carefully navigate significant constitutional considerations.
Prompting a chatbot involves … the user choosing words to communicate ideas, seek information, or express thoughts. That act of communication is protected under the First Amendment, even when software generates the specific response.
Take New York’s S 5668, which would make every user, including adults, verify their age before chatting, and would fine chatbot providers when a “misleading” or “harmful” reply “results in” any kind of demonstrable harm to the user. This is, in effect, a breathtakingly broad “misinformation” bill that would permit the government to punish speech it deems false — or true but subjectively harmful — whenever it can point to a supposed injury. This is inconsistent with the First Amendment, which precludes the government from regulating chatbot speech it thinks is misleading or harmful — just as it does with any other expression.
S 5668 would also require that certain companion bots be shut down for 24 hours whenever expressions of potential self-harm are detected, complementing a newly enacted New York prohibition that requires companion chatbots to include protocols to detect and address expressions of self-harm and direct users to crisis services. Both the bill and the new law also require chatbots to remind users that they are AI and not a human being.
Sound familiar? States like California, Utah, Arkansas, Florida, and Texas all attempted similar regulatory measures targeting another digital speech technology: social media. Those efforts have resulted in several court injunctions, repeals, vetoes, and blocked implementation because they violated the First Amendment rights of the platforms and users.
New York is just one of a few states that have introduced similar chatbot legislation. Minnesota’s SF 1857 requires age verification while flatly banning anyone under age 18 from “recreational” chatbots. California’s SB 243 targets undefined “rewarding” chat features, leaving developers to guess what speech is off-limits and pressuring them to censor conversations.
As we’ve said before, the First Amendment doesn’t evaporate when the speaker’s words depend on computer code. From the printing press to the internet, and now AI, each leap in expressive technology remains under its protective umbrella.
This is not because the machine itself has rights; rather, it’s protected by the rights of the developer who created the chatbot and of the users who create the prompts. Just like asking a question in a search engine or posting on social media and the responses they generate, prompting a chatbot involves a developer’s expressive design and the user choosing words to communicate ideas, seek information, or express thoughts. That act of communication is protected under the First Amendment, even when software generates the specific response.
FIRE will keep speaking out against these bills, which show a growing pattern of government overreach into First Amendment rights when it comes to digital speech.
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Trump’s Latest Executive Orders Target Accreditation
President Donald Trump took aim at college accreditors in an executive order signed Wednesday that targets two accrediting agencies for investigation and suggests others could lose federal recognition altogether.
The order was one of seven issued Wednesday as Trump nears the end of his first 100 days. Others directed the Education Department to enforce the law requiring colleges to disclose some foreign gifts and contracts, aimed to support historically Black colleges and universities, and outlined several policy changes for K-12 schools. With the accreditation order and the others, Trump and White House officials argued they were refocusing the education system on meritocracy.
Education Secretary Linda McMahon, who was in the Oval Office for the signing, opened her follow-up statement by praising the accreditation order and saying it would “bring long-overdue change” and “create a competitive marketplace.”
“America’s higher education accreditation system is broken,” she wrote. “Instead of pushing schools to adopt a divisive DEI ideology, accreditors should be focused on helping schools improve graduation rates and graduates’ performance in the labor market.”
Some of the immediate public reactions from higher ed groups criticized the accreditation order, describing it as yet another attempt to put more power in the hands of the president and threaten academic freedom.
The Council of Higher Education Accreditation said Trump’s directive would “affect the value and independence of accreditation,” while the American Association of University Professors said it would “remov[e] educational decision making from educators and reshap[e] higher education to fit an authoritarian political agenda.”
Overhauling Accreditation
Rumored for weeks, the accreditation order was perhaps the most anticipated one of those signed Wednesday, and it will likely have widespread ramifications as Trump seeks to scrutinize and reform the system.
Historically, accreditors have operated under the radar with little public attention, but in recent years conservatives have focused on the agencies and their role in holding colleges accountable. (The accreditors do hold a lot of power, because universities must be accredited by a federally recognized agency in order to access federal student aid.)
During his presidential campaign, Trump himself called accreditation reform his “secret weapon” and accused accreditors of failing “to ensure that schools are not ripping off students and taxpayers.”
The order calls for McMahon to suspend or terminate an accreditor’s federal recognition in order to hold it accountable if it violates federal civil rights law, according to a White House fact sheet. The executive order specifically says that requiring institutions “to engage in unlawful discrimination in accreditation-related activity under the guise of ‘diversity, equity, and inclusion’ initiatives” would be considered a violation of the law.
The order also singles out the American Bar Association, which accredits law schools, and the Liaison Committee on Medical Education, which accredits medical schools, and directs cabinet secretaries to investigate them. (The American Bar Association suspended DEI standards for its members in February, as did some other accreditors.)
Beyond that, McMahon is tasked to “realign accreditation with student-focused principles.” That could include recognizing new accreditors, prioritizing intellectual diversity among faculty and requiring “high-quality, high-value academic programs,” though the fact sheet doesn’t say how that would be measured.
White House staff secretary Will Scharf said during the event that accreditors have relied on “woke ideology” instead of merit and performance to accredit universities. He didn’t provide evidence for his claims, but the fact sheet cites the national six-year undergraduate graduation rate, which is at 64 percent, as one example of how accreditors have “failed to ensure quality.”
“The basic idea is to force accreditation to be focused on the merit and the actual results that these universities are providing, as opposed to how woke these universities have gotten,” Scharf said.
The Trump administration also wants to streamline the process to recognize accreditors and for institutions to change agencies. Some states that have required their public colleges to change accreditors have claimed that the Biden administration made the process too cumbersome.
Scharf said the order charges the Education Department “to really look holistically at this accreditation mess and hopefully make it much better.”
Trump didn’t say much about the order or what actions he hopes to see McMahon take next.
Enforcement of Foreign Gifts
The president is not the first government official this year who has sought to limit foreign influence on American colleges and universities.
The House recently passed a bill, known as the DETERRENT ACT, which would amend Section 117 of the Higher Education Act to lower the threshold for what foreign gifts must be reported from $250,000 to $50,000. It also would require the disclosure of all gifts from countries of “concern,” like China and Russia, regardless of amount. The legislation advanced to the Senate in late March following a 241–169 vote.
Rep. Tim Walberg, a Michigan Republican and chair of the committee that introduced the bill, praised Trump’s action Wednesday, saying it “underscores” a Republican commitment to “promoting transparency.”
“Foreign entities, like the Chinese Communist Party, anonymously funnel billions of dollars into America’s higher education institutions—exploiting these ties to steal research, indoctrinate students, and transform our schools into beachheads in a new age of information warfare,” Walberg wrote in a statement shortly after Trump’s order was signed. “I am glad the Trump administration understands the grave importance of this threat, and I look forward to working with President Trump to protect our students and safeguard the integrity of America’s higher education system.”
Colleges’ compliance with Section 117 has been a key issue for Republicans over the years. House lawmakers repeatedly criticized the Biden administration’s efforts to enforce the law, but former education secretary Miguel Cardona defended his agency’s actions. They also tried to pass the DETERRENT Act last session, but it was blocked by Democrats in the Senate.
The executive order is broader than the DETERRENT Act and does little to distinguish itself aside from directing McMahon to work with the attorney general and heads of other departments where appropriate and to reverse or rescind any of Biden’s actions that “permit higher education institutions to maintain improper secrecy.”
More Support for HBCUs
Another order creates within the White House an initiative focused on historically Black colleges and universities and revokes a Biden executive order titled “White House Initiative on Advancing Educational Equity, Excellence, and Economic Opportunity Through Historically Black Colleges and Universities.”
During his first term, Trump moved an HBCU initiative at the Education Department to the White House as a largely symbolic gesture to show his support for Black colleges. That initiative continued under Joe Biden, though it was returned to the Education Department. Biden also created initiatives focused on Hispanic-serving institutions and tribal colleges. Trump ended those newly created initiatives during his first week in office.
The executive order also established the President’s Board of Advisors on HBCUs at the Education Department, which appears to already exist. The panel last met in January, according to a Federal Register notice.
Scharf said the order would ensure that HBCUs are “able to do their job as effectively and as efficiently as possible.”
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Cosmetologists can’t shoot a gun? FIRE ‘blasts’ tech college for punishing student over target practice video
Language can be complicated. According to Merriam-Webster, the verb “blast” has as many as 15 different meanings — “to play loudly,” “to hit a golf ball out of a sand trap with explosive force,” “to injure by or as if by the action of wind.”
Recently, the word has added another definition to the list. Namely, “to attack vigorously” with criticism, as in, “to blast someone online” or “to put someone on blast.” This usage has become a common expression.
That’s what Leigha Lemoine, a student at Horry-Georgetown Technical College, meant when she posted in a private Snapchat group that a non-student who had insulted her needed to get “blasted.”
But HGTC’s administration didn’t see it that way. When some students claimed they felt uncomfortable with Lemoine’s post, the college summoned her to a meeting. Lemoine explained that the post was not a threat of physical harm, but rather a simple expression of her belief that the person who had insulted her should be criticized for doing so. The school’s administrators agreed and concluded there was nothing threatening in her words.
But two days later, things took a turn. Administrators discovered a video on social media of Lemoine firing a handgun at a target. The video was recorded off campus a year prior to the discovery, and had no connection to the “blasted” comment, but because she had not disclosed the video’s existence (why would she be required to?), the college decided to suspend her until the 2025 fall semester. Adding insult to injury, HGTC indicated she Lemoine would be on disciplinary probation when she returned.
Screenshots of Leigha Lemoine’s video on social media. HGTC administrators claim Lemoine’s post caused “a significant amount of apprehension related to the presence and use of guns.”
“In today’s climate, your failure to disclose the existence of the video, in conjunction with group [sic] text message on Snapchat where you used the term ‘blasted,’ causes concern about your ability to remain in the current Cosmetology cohort,” the college added.
Never mind the context of the gun video, which had nothing to do with campus or the person she said needed to get “blasted.” HGTC was determined to jeopardize Lemoine’s future over one Snapchat message and an unrelated video.
Colleges and universities would do well to take Lemoine’s case as a reminder to safeguard the expressive freedoms associated with humor and hyperbolic statements. Because make no mistake, FIRE will continue to blast the ones that don’t.
FIRE wrote to HGTC on Lemoine’s behalf on Oct. 7, 2024, urging the college to reverse its disciplinary action against Lemoine. We pointed out the absurdity of taking Lemoine’s “blasted” comment as an unprotected “true threat” and urged the college to rescind her suspension. Lemoine showed no serious intent to commit unlawful violence with her comment urging others to criticize an individual, and tying the gun video to the comment was both nonsensical and deeply unjust.
But HGTC attempted to blow FIRE off and plowed forward with its discipline. So we brought in the big guns — FIRE Legal Network member David Ashley at Le Clercq Law Firm took on the case, filing an emergency motion for a temporary restraining order. On Dec. 17, a South Carolina federal district court ordered HGTC to allow her to return to classes immediately while the case works its way through the courts.
Jokes and hyperbole are protected speech
Colleges and universities must take genuine threats of violence on campus seriously. That sometimes requires investigations and quick institutional action to ensure campus safety. But HGTC’s treatment of Lemoine is the latest in a long line of colleges misusing the “true threats” standard to punish clearly protected speech — remarks or commentary that are meant as jokes, hyperbole, or otherwise unreasonable to treat as though they are sincere.
Take over-excited rhetoric about sports. In 2022, Meredith Miller, a student at the University of Utah, posted on social media that she would detonate the nuclear reactor on campus (a low-power educational model with a microwave-sized core that one professor said “can’t possibly melt down or pose any risk”) if the football team lost its game. Campus police arrested her, and the Salt Lake County District Attorney’s Office charged her with making a terroristic threat.
The office eventually dropped the charge, but the university tried doubling down by suspending her for two years. It was only after intervention from FIRE and an outside attorney that the university relented. But that it took such significant outside pressure — especially over a harmless joke that was entirely in line with the kind of hyperbolic rhetoric one expects in sports commentary — reveals how dramatically the university overreacted.
Political rhetoric is often targeted as well. In 2020, Babson College professor Asheen Phansey found himself in hot water after posting a satirical remark on Facebook. After President Trump tweeted a threat that he might bomb 52 Iranian cultural sites, Phansey jokingly suggested that Iran’s leadership should publicly identify a list of American cultural heritage sites it wanted to bomb, including the “Mall of America” and the “Kardashian residence.” Despite FIRE’s intervention, Babson College’s leadership suspended Phansey and then fired him less than a day later.
Or consider an incident in which Louisiana State University fired a graduate instructor who left a heated, profanity-laced voicemail for a state senator in which he criticized the senator’s voting record on trans rights. The senator reported the voicemail to the police, who investigated and ultimately identified the instructor. The police closed the case after concluding that the instructor had not broken the law. You’re supposed to be allowed to be rude to elected officials. LSU nevertheless fired him.
More examples of universities misusing the true threats standard run the political gamut: A Fordham student was suspended for a post commemorating the anniversary of the Tianneman Square massacre; a professor posted on social media in support of a police officer who attacked a journalist and was placed on leave; an adjunct instructor wished for President Trump’s assassination and had his hiring revoked; another professor posted on Facebook supporting Antifa, was placed on leave, and then sued his college. Too often, the university discipline is made more egregious by the fact that administrators continue to use the idea of “threatening” speech to punish clearly protected expression even after local police departments conclude that the statements in question were not actually threatening.
What is a true threat?
Under the First Amendment, a true threat is defined as a statement where “the speaker means to communicate a serious expression of an intent to commit an act of unlawful violence to a particular individual or group of individuals.”
That eliminates the vast majority of threatening speech you hear each day, and for good reason. One of the foundational cases for the true threat standard is Watts v. U.S., in which the Supreme Court ruled that a man’s remark about his potential draft into the military — “If they ever make me carry a rifle, the first man I want to get in my sights is LBJ” — constituted political hyperbole, not a true threat. The Court held that such statements are protected by the First Amendment. And rightfully so: Political speech is where the protection of the First Amendment is “at its zenith.” An overbroad definition of threatening statements would lead to the punishment of political advocacy. Look no further than controversies in the last year and a half over calls for genocide to see how wide swathes of speech would become punishable if the standard for true threats was lower.
Colleges and universities would do well to take Lemoine’s case as a reminder to safeguard the expressive freedoms associated with humor and hyperbolic statements. Because make no mistake, FIRE will continue to blast the ones that don’t.
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Department of Education Delays Target Release of Title IX Rulemaking to October – CUPA-HR
by CUPA-HR | May 30, 2023
On May 26, the Department of Education published a blog post stating that the release of the anticipated Title IX final rule will be delayed until at least October 2023. The final rule was previously targeted in the Fall 2022 Regulatory Agenda for May 2023.
In the blog post, the department states that they need additional time to review the 240,000 comments they received in response to the Title IX proposed rule that was issued in July 2022. The department said that the 240,000 comments are nearly twice the number of comments the department received during the Trump administration’s Title IX rulemaking process, which included the release of a proposed rule in November 2018 and the subsequent final rule in May 2020. The department added that the new target date of October 2023 will be reflected in the upcoming Spring 2023 Regulatory Agenda, which will likely be released in the next month.
As a reminder, the Biden administration’s Title IX rulemaking rolls back the Trump administration’s 2020 regulations, specifically with respect to its grievance procedures, while simultaneously expanding protections against sex-based discrimination to cover sexual orientation, gender identity, and pregnancy or related conditions. CUPA-HR filed comments in September 2022 in response to the NPRM, in which we brought attention to the possible impact the proposed regulations could have on how higher education institutions address employment discrimination.
In addition to the Title IX rulemaking, the blog post also states that the final rule on transgender student eligibility in athletic programs under Title IX will also be delayed until at least October 2023. Released on April 6, the proposed rule establishes that schools that receive federal funding would not be permitted to adopt or apply a one-size-fits-all ban on transgender students participating on teams consistent with their gender identity and would instead allow schools the flexibility to develop team eligibility criteria that serves important educational objectives, such as fairness in competition and preventing sports-related injuries.
CUPA-HR will continue to monitor for updates on the Title IX final rule.
