Title IX Protections Extend to Transgender Students, Education Dept. Says

Using a Supreme Court ruling as its guide, the department issued guidance that discrimination against gay and transgender students was prohibited under the 1972 law.

WASHINGTON — A year after the Supreme Court ruled that protections in the Civil Rights Act against discrimination in the workplace extended to gay and transgender people, the Education Department said on Wednesday that it has interpreted the court’s decision to mean that those protections also extend to students. The department said that discrimination against gay and transgender students is prohibited under Title IX, a 1972 law that prohibits sex-based discrimination in federally funded schools. The law has become a political cudgel in the culture wars over sex and education. “We just want to double down on our expectations,” Miguel A. Cardona, the education secretary, said in an interview on Tuesday. “Students cannot be discriminated against because of their sexual orientation or their gender identity.”