AAUW Statement on U.S. Department of Education Rescinding Title IX Resolution Agreements
Rescission Undermines Title IX as a Civil Rights Tool and Signals Dangerous Shift from Protecting Students to Policing Inclusion
Washington, D.C. — AAUW strongly condemns the U.S. Department of Education’s decision today to rescind provisions of six Title IX resolution agreements that protected transgender and nonbinary students from sex-based harassment and discrimination. These agreements were reached through the Office for Civil Rights’ own established process, with schools that had been found out of compliance with federal civil rights law. Rescinding them and calling them “illegal” does not change that legal history — it abandons the students those findings were meant to protect.
Statement from Meghan Kissell, Senior Director, Policy & Member Advocacy, AAUW:
What we are witnessing is a dangerous shift — from using Title IX to protect students to wielding it for police inclusion. Today, the Department of Education didn’t free schools from a burden — it freed them from accountability. When the federal government decides that basic dignity for transgender students is an ‘ideology’ rather than a civil right, it isn’t upholding the law. It is abandoning the students the law was written to protect. AAUW has fought for Title IX for more than 50 years, and we will not stop now. The students in these six school districts — and in every school in America — deserve better.
The affected schools — Cape Henlopen School District, Delaware Valley School District, Fife School District, La Mesa-Spring Valley School District, Sacramento City Unified, and Taft College — negotiated these protections in good faith. Today’s action tells every student in those communities, and beyond, that the federal government is no longer in their corner.
This decision is part of a troubling pattern. A January 2026 Government Accountability Office report found that from March through September 2025, approximately 90% of the 7,072 complaints resolved by the Office for Civil Rights were dismissed — rather than investigated or acted upon.
AAUW will host a national webinar, “Title IX and Beyond: Defending Civil Rights in Education,” on April 23, 2026. Registration is available at aauw.org.
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AAUW (American Association of University Women) is one of the nation’s leading organizations 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 has since worked to increase women’s access, opportunity, and equity in higher education through research, advocacy, and philanthropy of over $146 million, supporting thousands of women scholars. Learn more at aauw.org.