Why Is the Energy Department Making Rules About Sex and School Sports?
How Trump is using the agency to fast-track changes to discrimination law.
The agency tasked with advancing America's energy security, developing its nuclear arsenal, and handling environmental challenges is now shaping the landscape of interscholastic sports in the United States.
The Energy Department recently released two direct final rules to modify existing Title IX protections. One of the rules would strike regulations requiring schools that receive federal funds to allow students to try out for opposite-sex noncontact sports teams if schools do not offer the sport to their sex. This change would impact sports such as tennis and swimming.
The Energy Department says "such athletics rules ignore differences between the sexes which are grounded in fundamental and incontrovertible reality while also imposing a burden on local governments and small businesses who are in the best position to determine the needs of their community and constituents." The rule was issued in response to President Donald Trump's executive order "Keeping Men Out of Women's Sports," which directed the Education Department to bring Title IX enforcement actions against educational institutions receiving federal funding "that deny female students an equal opportunity to participate in sports and athletic events by requiring them, in the women's category, to compete with or against or to appear unclothed before males."
The second rule issued by the Energy Department would strike a provision that allows students to "take affirmative action" to "overcome the effects of conditions that resulted in limited participation" if a federal agency determines that they have not faced discrimination based on sex in an "education program or activity." The rule also strikes a requirement mandating schools to conduct self-evaluations on how their programs and practices comply with Title IX. Reporting under this provision ended in 2002.
While Title IX enforcement has traditionally been led by the Education Department, the Energy Department has "long used the law to close the gap between men and women in science, technology, engineering and mathematics fields," reports Politico. Still, the method by which the agency is proposing to reform Title IX is worrying several civil rights groups.
The agency is using a direct final rule process, which has been reserved for "noncontroversial rules" that are "unlikely to receive significant adverse comments," notes Politico. Shiwali Patel, senior director of safe and inclusive schools at the National Women's Law Center, told Politico that direct final rules can't be used for Title IX.
"Technically, it just takes one significant adverse comment for them to have to withdraw the rule or to go through the notice of proposed rulemaking," said Patel. "However, we're dealing with an administration that has made very clear that they are not about complying with the law."
In a letter to Energy Secretary Chris Wright, Sen. Mazie Hirono (D–Hawaii) and Rep. Teresa Leger Fernandez (D–N.M.) demanded the direct rules be rescinded, arguing that they could have "far-reaching implications."
More than 21,000 public comments have been filed on the rule governing sports and over 9,000 have been submitted to the agency on its education rule. Unless they are changed by the Energy Department, the rules will become effective on July 15.
It may seem strange to use a federal agency whose mission is to address America's "energy, environmental and nuclear challenges through transformative science and technology solutions" to substantially change school sports across the country. Still, it is not the first time that a president has used Title IX to implement their favored policies.
In 2024, the Biden administration unveiled Title IX regulations changing how colleges handle sexual assault allegations, which Reason's Emma Camp called "a stunning rollback of due process rights for accused students." Similar rules were finalized under the Obama administration.
In their letter, Hirono and Leger Fernandez told Wright that they "will not let this administration threaten opportunities for women by misusing and trying to hide behind complicated bureaucratic procedures." The real problem they should be addressing is why the federal government is large enough to allow such "complicated bureaucratic procedures" to exist and impact so many Americans in the first place.
