GOP probes Education Department's Title IX proposals they fear will 'wipe out' women's sports

House Republicans on Thursday launched a probe into the Department of Education's proposed revisions to its Title IX regulations to account for "gender identity" and allegedly reduce student rights.

In a Thursday letter to Education Secretary Miguel Cardona, Subcommittee on Health Care and Financial Services Chairwoman Lisa McClain, R-Mich.; and Committee on Education and the Workforce Chairwoman Virginia Foxx, N.C.; demanded he account for the proposals' origins and provide them with documents related to their drafting.

"The Committees are concerned that your efforts to gut due process protections for accused and accusing students, redefine 'sex discrimination' to include 'gender identity,' and otherwise abandon established regulations protecting women and girls are improperly motivated and destructive to American students," they wrote. "Rather than providing clarity, the proposed regulations weaken essential protections for students that had been secured by Secretary Betsy DeVos and the Trump administration."

The Department announced its proposed rule changes in July of last year. Republican detractors have insisted they would undercut the rights of students, particularly with regards to sexual misconduct allegations. McClain and Foxx specifically invoked the Obama administration's 2011 "Dear Colleague" letter and said Cardona's plans represented a return to the policies it outlined. The 2011 letter, they said, "deprived students of any semblance of due process protections and placed universities on dubious legal footing" while prompting roughly 300 lawsuits against universities.

"Moreover, the proposed Title IX regulations contain a troubling provision that will harm women and girls across the country," the Republicans continued. "By redefining 'sex discrimination' to include 'gender identity,' the proposed regulations, along with additional proposed regulations addressing athletics, will effectively wipe out female-only sports and spaces in every federally funded school. Sex discrimination that includes discrimination on the basis of 'gender identity' will virtually ensure that young women will 'lose out on opportunities, scholarships, and even their basic rights to privacy and safety.'"

The pair set a Nov. 30 deadline for Cardona to provide them with a litany of documents and communications between DOE officials and outside entities related to the creation of the proposed Title IX revisions.

Ben Whedon is an editor and reporter for Just the News. Follow him on X, formerly Twitter.