McMahon’s Title IX Comments Cause Confusion, Concerns

Sexual violence prevention groups say that recent comments from Linda McMahon about Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 muddied the waters over how President Donald Trump and his administration plan to address sexual harassment on college campuses.

At her confirmation hearing last week, McMahon reiterated that Title IX should protect students from assault, but she didn’t seem familiar with the nuances of the regulations that Trump put in place during his first administration, which are now in effect after a federal judge tossed out the Biden administration’s revised Title IX rule.

The nominee said that colleges are “obligated” to respond to reports of sexual misconduct that occurs off campus. But under Trump’s 2020 rule, colleges aren’t responsible for sexual assault or harassment that takes place in study abroad programs or in private, off-campus settings. She also noted that sexual harassment and assault should be prohibited “in any case.” But the Trump policy says harassment must be both severe and pervasive in order to be prohibited under Title IX.

The Biden administration attempted to change those provisions in its 2024 rewrite of Title IX, which also protected students from discrimination based on sexual orientation, gender identity and pregnancy status and allowed colleges to conduct investigations without a live cross-examination. The rule was finalized in April 2024 and then vacated in January shortly before Biden left office.

In the last decade, Title IX has become one of the most high-profile political fights waged by the department, with guidance and regulations changing with each administration since former president Barack Obama’s first term. But Republicans on the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee didn’t seem to take issue with McMahon’s comments during the hearing, and she’ll likely get the green light when the panel votes today.

Sexual misconduct experts who advocated for the broader protections in 2024 say that McMahon’s recent comments can be interpreted one of two ways—either she expressed personal beliefs that conflict with the current regulations, or she simply doesn’t understand the policy. But either way, they add, it’s impossible to know what McMahon really meant.

“We can only speculate as to whether or not her responses … indicate personal beliefs that actually conflict with what is written in the 2020 rule, or if she wrongly assumed her answers reflected [its] content,” said Tracey Vitchers, executive director of It’s On Us, a nonprofit founded as an initiative of the Obama administration to combat campus sexual assault.

Course Strat reached out to both the White House and the Department of Education to ask for clarification on the nominee’s comments, but neither replied. Supporters of Trump’s 2020 policy and critics of Biden’s attempt to rewrite it acknowledged that McMahon’s comments caused confusion but had little else to say about her approach to Title IX.

“Regardless of any confusion created by Senator Baldwin’s line of questioning of education secretary nominee Linda McMahon, the Supreme Court’s ruling is clear,” said Tyler Coward, lead counsel for government affairs at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression. “Student-on-student sexual harassment occurs when conduct is so severe, pervasive, and objectively offensive that it effectively bars the victim’s access to an educational opportunity or benefit.”

Amid the confusion, some advocates are looking for the silver lining—they hope that McMahon truly disagrees with Trump’s past approach to Title IX and see these comments as an opportunity to amend aspects of the current rule. But others say past comments from the Trump administration and McMahon’s experience as former president of the America First Policy Institute, which opposed efforts during the Biden administration to rewrite the Title IX regulations, show that change is unlikely.

“McMahon’s vague assertions that schools should follow civil rights law are not comforting,” said Fatima Goss Graves, president and CEO of the National Women’s Law Center. “This country deserves a secretary of education who takes child sexual abuse seriously and who we can trust to protect students.”

‘So Concerned’

Senator Tammy Baldwin, a Democrat from Wisconsin, used most of her five minutes of questions to press McMahon on Title IX, asking a series of yes-or-no questions: Should sexual harassment be prohibited? Should that be the case if it’s severe? What if it’s pervasive? And what if it’s severe or pervasive?

McMahon responded to each inquiry with a resounding yes. But those answers conflicted with the current policy, which Baldwin was quick to point out.

“I’m glad you actually [dis]agree with President Trump’s efforts during his first term to narrow what qualifies,” she said. “I hope that you will take your position and press for that to be the law, but right now Title IX is limited.”

The senator then set McMahon up one more time, asking whether colleges should investigate cases of harassment that occur off campus. Once again the nominee answered affirmatively. “I believe under the regulations today … they are obligated to investigate,” McMahon said, despite the fact that that is not the case.

“I am so concerned about whether sexual assault survivors can trust you to protect them on campus,” Baldwin said. She also raised concerns about the workplace sexual harassment lawsuit that McMahon is facing from her time at the helm of WWE.

And Baldwin isn’t the only one concerned. In a letter to the HELP committee Wednesday, a coalition of civil rights groups said that “McMahon’s clear lack of knowledge and understanding about the requirements of the role … only underscore how unqualified she is for such an important position.”

Brigid Harrington, a higher education attorney at Hunton Andrews Kurth, said she is hesitant to speculate on what McMahon knows or what she meant at last week’s hearing. But after weeks of “tremendous” uncertainty, it would be incorrect to say college administrators aren’t worried.

“The concern isn’t unique to Title IX,” Harrington said. “They’re worried about everything, to be candid.”

Although Vitchers from It’s On Us acknowledged the concern and noted that the current level of confusion around Title IX could open institutions up to “significant legal liability," she saw the lack of clarity as an opportunity to work with McMahon and amend Title IX moving forward.

“If McMahon was speaking her own truth,” she said, “it could create opportunities for advocates to work with the administration to remedy the aspects of the 2020 rule that made reporting harder for survivors and campuses less safe.”

But even that positive outlook would take lots of time to execute and potentially could cause negative side effects. During the last two administrations, rewriting and finalizing new Title IX regulations took nearly three years.

However, the Title IX debate has shifted in recent years from concerns about the rights of those accused and protections for harassment victims to questions over who is protected under the federal law. The Biden administration specifically barred discrimination based on gender identity in an effort to expand protections for transgender students—a decision that sparked lawsuits and fierce pushback from Republicans. Trump has made rolling back rights for transgender students a priority during his first 30 days in office.

The focus on transgender students under Title IX came through during questioning from Senator Josh Hawley, a Missouri Republican. He asked whether the regulations should restrict transgender women and their ability to participate in women’s sports, access women’s dorms and use women’s restrooms. McMahon’s answers aligned with what Trump has said during the first 30 days of his second term.

“Women should feel safe in their locker rooms,” she said. “They should [not] have to feel exposed to men undressing in front of them … we want to make sure Title IX, which is the law, is enforced.”

So even if an amendment to Title IX helped broaden protections for those who file complaints of sexual assault, it could narrow the protections for trans individuals.

“There would be a concern for the broader advocate community about what additional harm could potentially be wrapped into a new Title IX,” Vitchers said.