Trump administration reverts Title IX rules to 2020 framework

Cornell survey finds more than one in three undergrad women report sexual assault

The lawsuit by Jane Doe claims she was drugged and raped by seven students at a Cornell fraternity house in October 2024. Campus police investigated and referred the case to the local district attorney, but no criminal charges resulted. The student’s report then triggered Cornell’s internal Title IX process.

According to the lawsuit, at least 12 hearings were held before a panel of faculty and staff in May 2025. Cornell, in a statement, said its investigation took “several months” and resulted in expulsions and suspensions, and that the fraternity chapter involved “was closed in 2024 and remains barred from campus.”

Title IX, the 1972 federal law prohibiting sex discrimination in schools, requires universities to allow all students a safe campus environment and to ensure that sexual violence does not hinder a student’s equal access to an education. The law sets a lower burden of proof than a criminal case and can be a separate route for a student to seek relief when prosecutors decline to file charges.

“The school’s role in Title IX, as opposed to criminal proceedings, is to determine whether or not the person accused of this sexual assault should remain on campus,” said Beth Gellman-Beer, who spent nearly two decades at the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights. “Schools are not determining if somebody is going to go to jail. The school’s responsibility is to ensure a safe and inclusive environment where all students have access to the educational environment.”

Depending on the severity of the alleged conduct, Title IX outcomes can include suspension or expulsion for the accused, alternative housing for the person who reported the assault, a “no-contact” order, or work-schedule changes to keep the two parties apart. The goal, Gellman-Beer said, is to provide support so the student who reported the assault can still attend class.

In 2020, the Trump administration raised the burden of proof in Title IX cases and required schools to conduct “live hearings with cross-examinations,” among other changes. The Biden administration later sought to expand Title IX to include protections for LGBTQ students and removed the live-hearing requirement, which critics charged had discouraged reporting. The Trump administration this week overturned those Biden-era additions and reverted to the 2020 version of the rules.

The back-and-forth has created confusion at colleges about how to implement the law, according to Carolin Guentert, a lawyer who has represented victims in Title IX sexual assault cases. “It’s often a flawed process,” Guentert said. “Title IX coordinators or individuals tasked with investigating these kinds of situations don’t have the proper training, and are not always trauma-informed,” she said. “The regulations are changing so quickly and schools’ policies have to keep up,” which she said can leave an investigator “out of step with their own schools’ policies.”

Sexual assault on college campuses remains widespread, Guentert said. “I hear a lot of people talking about, ‘How could this happen at such an elite institution?’” she said. “And really the answer is, this happens everywhere, all the time.”

At Cornell, a 2025 survey found more than one in three undergraduate women reported experiencing a sexual assault at some point during their time at the university, up from 23% in 2023. The school created a task force to make recommendations on how to curb sexual violence on campus, including increased education about sex and school-specific processes for reporting the behavior.

Historically, a student who believed their college had failed to protect them could file a Title IX complaint with the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights, which would trigger an investigation. In its efforts to eliminate the Education Department, the Trump administration has drastically cut back that office, transferring many of its lawyers to the Justice Department.

The administration has also focused its Title IX enforcement much more heavily on gender identity and transgender athletic policies. In 2025, the Office for Civil Rights did not reach any resolution agreements for major discrimination cases involving sexual harassment or sexual violence on campus, according to a recent report from Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt.