Department of Education recognizes June as ‘Title IX Month’

The Trump administration is celebrating “Title IX Month” in June, marking a contrast to much of corporate America and previous administrations’ embrace of LGBT Pride Month. 

The U.S. Department of Education announced in a statement Monday that it is recognizing June as “Title IX Month” in commemoration of the 53rd anniversary of the enactment of Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 into law.

Title IX requires all educational institutions that receive federal funding to ensure equal opportunities for women and girls in education, including when it comes to athletics. 

Get Our Latest News for FREE

Subscribe to get daily/weekly email with the top stories (plus special offers!) from The Christian Post. Be the first to know.

“The Department is recognizing June as ‘Title IX Month’ to honor women’s hard-earned civil rights and demonstrate the Trump Administration’s unwavering commitment to restoring them to the fullest extent of the law,” stated Secretary of Education Linda McMahon. “Title IX provides women protections on the basis of sex in all educational activities, which include their rights to equal opportunity in sports and sex-segregated intimate spaces, including sororities and living accommodations.” 

June is also recognized by many Americans as LGBT pride month. During a White House press briefing Tuesday, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt indicated that the Trump administration would not be issuing a presidential proclamation for pride month as then-President Joe Biden did last year. 

Shortly after taking office in January, Trump issued an executive order directing federal agencies to interpret Title IX rules prohibiting sex discrimination in education as prohibiting males who identify as women from participating in female athletic contests. The administration has also threatened to strip funding from states that permit male trans-identified athletes to compete in female sporting events. 

During the Biden administration, Title IX rules were interpreted to define sex discrimination as including gender identity and sexual orientation, drawing a legal challenge from a high school student who claims to have lost out on opportunities because she was forced to compete against a male.

The U.S. Department of Education highlighted two actions its Office of Civil Rights is taking to ensure the enforcement of Title IX, including an investigation into the University of Wyoming over its allowance of a trans-identified male into the sorority Kappa Kappa Gamma.

“Members of the KKG sorority chapter sued the sorority itself for allowing a male into the group and permitting him to access living areas of the sorority house that are restricted to women,” the statement reads. 

In 2023, a federal judge dismissed a lawsuit brought by KKG members who opposed the induction of a male trans-identified student into a sorority.

In its statement, the Education Department said that the schools that receive federal funding and support or sponsor a fraternity “must meet its obligations under Title IX to protect its students from sex-based harassment and sexual assault, regardless of the sorority or fraternity’s policy.”

“A sorority that admits male students is no longer a sorority by definition and thus loses the Title IX statutory exemption for a sorority’s single-sex membership practices,” the department asserted.

The administration will also investigate Jefferson County Public Schools in Colorado over its policy resulting in students sharing “overnight accommodations with other students that share a student’s ‘gender identity.'”

The department claims the district’s policy led to an 11-year-old girl having to share a bed with a trans-identified male student on an overnight field trip. 

“The district allegedly misleads parents by informing them that girls and boys will be separated for overnight accommodations without divulging that its definition of ‘girl’ includes boys who claim a female identity,” the Education Department alleges. 

During a White House press briefing Tuesday, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt indicated that the Trump administration would not be issuing a presidential proclamation for LGBT pride month as then-President Joe Biden did last year. 

“There are no plans for a proclamation for the month of June,” Leavitt said. “I can tell you this president is very proud to be a president of all Americans regardless of race, religion or creed.”