PRESS RELEASE: On Fifth Anniversary of DeVos Rule, DFI Releases Its Model Title IX Law, the ‘RESPECT Title IX Act’

WASHINGTON—On the fifth anniversary of the DeVos Title IX regulations, the Defense of Freedom Institute for Policy Studies (DFI) today released a comprehensive model Title IX law, the Respect Equality in Sports, Privacy, and Education and Campus Transparency Act (RESPECT Title IX Act), that would codify core protections into federal statute—bringing an end to the policy whiplash students, schools, and colleges face with each new administration.

DFI’s model statute comes as the courts have blocked the Biden administration’s illegal attempt to rewrite Title IX, halting efforts to inject gender ideology into federal policy and strip away rights long guaranteed to women, students, and parents. The Trump administration has since taken decisive executive action to restore clarity and protect equal opportunity in schools, colleges, and universities. The RESPECT Title IX Act restores Title IX to its original purpose: without bias, prohibiting discrimination in education on the basis of sex, not gender identity, while protecting single-sex sports, housing, and intimate facilities.

“Title IX was designed to protect students from sex-based discrimination—not to serve as a tool for radical gender identity activists,” said DFI President and Co-Founder Bob Eitel. “Our model law provides a blueprint to stop the regulatory ping-pong as administrations come and go and ensures critical protections for women and girls, guarantees campus due process in Title IX disciplinary proceedings, and prohibits schools from keeping secrets from parents—all without infringing on free speech, academic freedom, and religious liberty.”

For the first time, the DeVos Title IX rule, finalized on May 19, 2020, barred sexual harassment in education. The rule also strengthened due process for both accusers and the accused. DFI’s RESPECT Title IX Act would codify these protections and guard against future attempts by unelected political bureaucrats to leverage Title IX for radical agendas using the federal rulemaking process.

Highlights of DFI’s Model Title IX Law include:

• Defining “sex” based on immutable biology, not gender identity;
• Guaranteeing single-sex sports and private spaces;
• Restoring campus due process, including banning the discredited single-investigator model;
• Using Supreme Court case law to define sexual harassment;
• Upholding free speech and academic freedom;
• Barring schools from refusing to disclose information to parents about their children’s activities in school;
• Strengthening exemptions for faith-based institutions of education; and
• Prohibiting federal agencies from conducting rulemaking under Title IX.

“Unless Congress acts, Title IX will remain vulnerable to the whims of future administrations,” said Eitel. “Codifying these protections into law will provide certainty and stability for students, parents, and educational institutions.”

The RESPECT Title IX Act and additional resources are available at www.dfipolicy.org/TitleIX.

Support for the RESPECT Title IX Act:

Cory Brewer, Education Counsel, Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty
“Every student deserves the opportunity to learn and compete with dignity and fairness. For over 50 years, Title IX has protected those opportunities for women and girls in education, and that commitment deserves to be honored. We applaud the efforts by DFI to bring fairness and common sense back to the classroom.”

Justin Dillon, Partner, Dillon PLLC
“The Defense of Freedom Institute’s RESPECT Title IX Act is brilliant. It takes a smart, sensitive, and balanced approach to the handling of difficult issues ranging from gender ideology to due process. Should it pass, DFI’s model law would end, once and for all, the era of whipsaw regulations we’ve been in for the last decade and a half.”

Kim Hermann, President, Southeastern Legal Foundation:
“Defense of Freedom Institute’s proposal to amend Title IX ensures that America’s girls and women will forever be provided an equal opportunity to education and be protected in our schools and in sports. Without this type of comprehensive legislative reform, the door remains open for future administrations to erode Title IX’s protections and force radical gender ideology back into our schools, just like the Biden Administration did. SLF is thankful that DFI is leading this effort.”

Carrie Lukas, President, Independent Women’s Forum
“It’s incredibly important that we use the momentum we have to codify protections for women and girls. Executive orders are important, but we need legislation. That’s why Independent Women is so glad that the Respect Equality in Sports, Privacy, and Education and Campus Transparency Act (RESPECT Title IX Act) has been created and everyone in Congress—on the left and the right—should support it.” 

Dean McGee, Senior Counsel for Educational Freedom, Liberty Justice Center:
“The provisions of this model legislation that reinforce due process, protect free expression, and uphold parental rights reflect the same principles we fight for every day in court, and would help reaffirm the constitutional protections that should apply in every school setting.”

Rachel N. Morrison, Fellow, Ethics and Public Policy Center:
“This model law recognizes the reality that sex is biological and binary—male and female. It allows Congress the opportunity to determine the full scope of Title IX and removes the ability of unelected government officials to expand Title IX in ways not voted on by the people’s representatives. Congress should jump at the opportunity to provide much-needed clarity to the application of Title IX.”

Beth Parlato, Senior Legal Advisor, Independent Women’s Law Center
“The RESPECT Title IX Act reaffirms the foundational principles of fairness, privacy, and parental rights in education. By protecting women’s sports and spaces, ensuring due process on campus, and upholding freedom of speech, this model legislation restores the original intent of Title IX—equal opportunity without ideological coercion.”

Sarah Parshall Perry, Vice President & Legal Fellow, Defending Education
“By manipulating the plain language of one brief, simply worded federal civil rights law—Title IX— the Biden Administration was able to obliterate free speech, women’s equality, due process, and ideological diversity in federally funded schools with the stroke of a pen. In so doing, it ignored a mountain of evidence relative to Title IX’s incontrovertible origins in the movement for educational equality, played favorites with preferred classes of students to the detriment of others, and treated both religious and secular objectors as targets ripe for federal investigation. DFI’s model legislation aims to prevent a future administration from ever again playing fast and loose with a long-standing federal law to achieve its own desired political ends. Their bill is not just a welcome development—it’s a critical one.” 

William E. Trachman, General Counsel, Mountain States Legal Foundation; Former Deputy Assistant Secretary, U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights.
“American campuses today are extensively governed by Title IX and its regulations. From athletics, to bathrooms, to sexual harassment allegations, Title IX is an inescapable feature of school life. And those schools and their students suffer when predictability and certainty give way to radical ideological demands made by activist groups, or previously, to the Biden-Harris Administration. What DFI has done here is to restore the values of predictability and certainty, while ensuring that the original and enduring definition of ‘sex’ is never distorted or watered down. I applaud this effort, and look forward to seeing a day when fairness, due process, and biological reality are firmly entrenched in American law.”