The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Wikimedia Commons/Coolcaesar Facebook Share Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, a federal law, provides that educational institutions that get federal money may not discriminate in their educational programs “on the basis of sex.” Congress included in Title IX a provision that exempts religious educational institutions from complying with the law if complying would violate their religious tenets. The Biden Administration interprets Title IX to also ban discrimination because of sexual orientation or gender identity, relying on the Supreme Court’s definition of employment discrimination “because of sex” under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 in the Bostock case in 2020. Some religious educational institutions have cited the exemption provision, however, when refusing to recognize LGBTQ student groups, to take action against bullying or harassment of LGBTQ students or faculty, to refuse to recognize same-sex spouses, or otherwise to prevent or redress LGBTQ-related discrimination. After Title IX was enacted in 1972, the U.S. Department of Education (DOE) adopted regulations specifying that any educational institution receiving federal money that wanted to invoke the religious exemption needed to file a notice with DOE’s Office of Civil Rights (OCR) explaining […]

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