AAUW Condemns Return of 2020 Title IX Rules During Campus “Red Zone”

Education Department Restores Rules That Make It Harder for Students to Report Sexual Assault

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The American Association of University Women (AAUW) condemns the U.S. Department of Education’s decision today to formally rescind the 2024 Title IX regulations and restore the 2020 rules. AAUW warned that those rules would make it harder for survivors to seek help and to hold schools accountable. Today’s action locks them in place.

The first months of the fall semester are known as the “Red Zone,” when students, especially those new to campus, face a heightened risk of sexual assault. This is the period when schools should be assuring students that they can come forward. Instead, the Department is cementing rules that limit when schools must respond to harassment and require college students who file a formal complaint to face a live hearing with cross-examination.

“Students need more than a promise that their school takes sexual violence seriously,” said Gloria L. Blackwell, AAUW’s Chief Executive Officer. “They need timely support. Can they return to class, remain on campus, and pursue the future they came to build? Rules that make seeking help harder put all of that at risk.”

The stakes for students’ education are real. In a 2024 survey of students at 10 universities, 68% of women who experienced rape reported academic or professional consequences. Fewer than half of undergraduate women said officials were very or extremely likely to act on a report of sexual misconduct.

Today’s action also formally ends the 2024 rule’s explicit protections for LGBTQ+ students and its stronger protections for pregnant students. The administration calls this protecting women and girls, but the record says otherwise. The Government Accountability Office found that the Department’s Office for Civil Rights dismissed about 90% of the discrimination complaints it resolved from March to September 2025. In May, bipartisan members of Congress noted that the office has posted no resolved sexual harassment or sexual violence cases since January 2025. Protecting women and girls requires investigating their complaints.

AAUW calls on colleges and universities to make support readily accessible, respond promptly to reports, and address the conditions that allow harassment and assault to persist. AAUW further calls on policymakers to hold schools accountable and strengthen federal civil rights enforcement.

“Title IX’s promise is that no student should lose an education because of sex discrimination,” Blackwell said. “That promise has to hold when a student asks for help.”

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AAUW is the nation’s leading organization for equity in higher education and women’s economic empowerment. Founded in 1881 by women who defied society’s conventions by earning college degrees, AAUW works to expand women’s access, opportunity, and equity through research, advocacy, education, and philanthropy. Since 1888, the organization has invested more than $150 million in women scholars, researchers, and community change-makers. Learn more at aauw.org.