Following a recent court ruling, some Aurora-area school districts are revising their Title IX policies to align with a federal rule that eliminates protections for transgender students, among other provisions, in line with regulations created during President Donald Trump’s first term.
Reversing a more recent version of the federal rule under former President Joe Biden’s administration, changing guidance at the federal level is creating a sort of patchwork of Title IX procedures in local school districts, including those in Aurora, as they adopt policies to remain in line with federal requirements.
Title IX was enacted in 1972 to prohibit sex discrimination, applying to education programs or activities that receive federal funding, like public school districts.
But there was not a federal rule clarifying what schools had to do to handle Title IX complaints until 2020 during Trump’s first term, explained Emily Suski, a law professor at the University of South Carolina whose work focuses on education law and Title IX. Federal regulations made by government agencies like the revisions to Title IX require a formal process, a “notice-and-comment” procedure, before they can be finalized, she explained.
Then, President Joe Biden’s administration undid that rule by going through the same process to revise the federal regulations for Title IX in April 2024, according to The Associated Press. The rule went into effect in August 2024. Notably, the Biden administration’s rules said that LGBTQ+ students were protected under Title IX, prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity.
But those policies remained in effect only briefly. In January, a federal judge in Kentucky struck down Biden’s Title IX rules, effectively ordering a return to the previous version of the rule, according to The Associated Press.
Shortly after, Trump, who made opposition to transgender rights a centerpiece of his campaign for a second term as president, issued an executive order called “Defending women from gender ideology extremism and restoring biological truth to the federal government,” and the United States Education Department announced that it would be enforcing the 2020 version of the Title IX rule, sending out a letter in early February clarifying the enforcement of the previous version.
School districts, then, have to develop policies in accordance with whatever version of the federal Title IX rule is in effect, Suski said. The federal rule doesn’t determine the exact policies they develop, and they can “arguably provide more protections than the federal government, they just can’t fall below” what the federal government requires, she said.
These recent changes have left Aurora-area districts working to update their policies to ensure they’re in line with federal regulations.
Indian Prairie School District 204’s school board, for example, passed a new Title IX policy in August to be in compliance with the 2020 Title IX regulations after the January court ruling vacating the 2024 rule, according to a statement from District 204 Chief Human Resources Officer and Title IX Coordinator Carey Beth Harry. The current policy is found in the district’s parent-student handbook.
The district’s policy approved in August replaced a version adopted last September that was in line with the 2024 federal regulations, according to past versions of the policy obtained by The Beacon-News.
Kaneland 302 updated its policy in May, reverting back to the 2020 regulations, according to past versions of its Title IX policy. A version adopted in December 2024 followed the 2024 federal regulations.
Both districts’ 2024 Title IX policies, for example, explicitly prohibited “discrimination on the basis of sex stereotypes, sex characteristics, pregnancy or related conditions, sexual orientation, and/or gender identity,” a line which is absent from the more recently-approved policies.
In the south suburbs, two school districts, Orland High School District 230 and Bremen High School District 228, also recently updated their policies in order to comply with federal law, according to past reporting.
Nearly all public school districts in Illinois, including Indian Prairie and Kaneland, are subscribed to the Policy Reference Education Subscription Service, or PRESS, from the Illinois Association of School Boards, which provides sample policy materials for school boards to customize on their own, according to past reporting. Many districts also subscribe to an extended version of the service, called PRESS plus, which presents updates specific to a board’s customized policies.
Maryam Brotine, Illinois Association of School Boards’ associate general counsel and its director of diversity, equity and inclusion services, said that the association released new Title IX materials in August 2024 to reflect the Biden administration regulations.
Then, the January ruling was made, which Brotine said “did create a bit of confusion” for subscribers to the service who had only received the previous guidance a few months before. It generally takes a school board a few months, she said, to consider a new policy, customize it, possibly consult with its own legal counsel and eventually adopt it.
In April, the association issued another Title IX sample policy, which “essentially reinstituted” the 2020 version of the Title IX regulations, she explained.
“We were definitely keeping an eye on (the Title IX regulations),” Brotine said, “based on the number of lawsuits filed and the patchwork that was then going on in the U.S. over which regulations were being implemented where. We knew … some change was going to come down the pipeline, we just didn’t know how.”
And the court ruling meant districts had to revise their policies again.
“It kind of gave some districts whiplash, understandably,” Brotine said.
Oswego School District 308 most recently updated its policy on June 9, 2025, according to the policy. A version approved in 2024 appears to use language largely in line with previous guidance, but removed the term “sexual harassment” from the title of the policy. According to documents from the district, that change was made “in anticipation of Title IX rulemaking” expected to expand the scope of Title IX regulations to include sex discrimination, not just sexual harassment.
Batavia School District 101’s current Title IX policy, which says it was most recently updated in October 2024, also appears largely unchanged compared to its previous policy, but, like Oswego, has removed “sexual harassment” from the policy title, compared to a version of the policy approved in 2020.
A 2024 version of East Aurora’s Title IX policy also removes “sexual harassment” from the title of its policy, but appears to have kept its language largely in line with previous versions, according to records from the district obtained by The Beacon-News.
Its most recent revision was passed on July 7 by the school board. A spokesperson for East Aurora declined to comment on the district’s Title IX procedures.
West Aurora last updated its Title IX policy in 2020, and most recently updated the policy in 2021, a district spokesperson told The Beacon-News. The district is in the process of incorporating the changes to the policy made via the IASB’s PRESS service in April 2025. A revised version of the policy was set to be up for consideration at West Aurora’s school board meeting on Oct. 6.
Suski explained that there was “very little time” between the 2024 regulations going into effect and this recent reversal to the 2020 version, meaning some districts may have not had the time to ever adopt the 2024 regulations.
She explained that districts are likely opting to revert back to previous guidance to avoid potential challenges from the federal government.
“If you were a risk-averse school district, that would be the safer way to go, because what’s happening … is the Trump administration is trying to go after schools and withhold funding in various ways for allowing kids to go to the bathroom that corresponds with their gender identity,” Suski said.
Controversy and federal attention has arisen regarding transgender students’ use of locker rooms and bathrooms in nearby school districts, from District 365-U — which includes Bolingbrook, Romeoville and portions of Plainfield, Lockport and Downers Grove — to Chicago Public Schools to a Deerfield 109 middle school, according to past reporting.
The U.S. Department of Education, asked for comment about the Title IX rules, referred back to the news release from January announcing the reversion back to the 2020 Title IX rule.
In the absence of lodging a Title IX complaint, Brotine explained that school districts generally have a “uniform grievance procedure” policy, which she called an “umbrella procedure” for various kinds of discrimination or other misconduct that can be investigated by the district.
Asked about protections against discrimination on the basis of things like sexual orientation or gender identity, a District 204 spokesperson said that “harassment of any form is prohibited,” which is addressed in several other board policies pertaining to discrimination, harassment, bullying and the district’s uniform grievance procedure.
Batavia 101’s Chief Human Resources Officer, in a statement provided to The Beacon-News, pointed to district policies related to equal educational opportunities and prohibition of harassment, saying that those policies would prohibit discrimination against or harassment of transgender students or based on sexual orientation.
Suski, however, said anti-bullying policies have “no teeth to them,” in that there’s not the same kind of enforcement mechanism as Title IX has.
David Sally, West Aurora High School’s associate principal, pointed to the district’s house system which divides students up alphabetically as central to how they resolve student conflicts or issues. The five houses each have a dean, two guidance counselors, a social worker and a few other district employees to help students with concerns.
“That’s there to support students for whatever issue they’re having,” Sally said, “regardless of their …sexual orientation, gender identity. The house is there to support any student through any issue they’re having.”
But, amid uncertainty at the federal level around things like federal funding and diversity, equity and inclusion programs at schools across the country, some district officials and experts pointed out that changing guidance creates some uncertainty about how to enforce Title IX.
“It’s been hard for them, understandably, schools, universities, because the rules keep changing,” Suski said.
Kaneland 302 Superintendent Kurt Rohlwing said his district doesn’t get many Title IX complaints, but emphasized that the district tends to talk to its lawyer in any situation where there’s uncertainty about whether something constitutes a violation of Title IX.
But the changes do complicate things, he noted.
“You adjust to one set of rules and then, as those rules change, sometimes quite quickly, now you’re forced to go back to the old way,” Rohlwing said. “Like, in this case, forced to go back to the way we were doing things five years ago … it makes it harder for us to really be able to establish good practices and procedures.”
Jeremy Bell, the assistant superintendent of Student Services for Oswego 308 and also the district’s Title IX coordinator, similarly told The Beacon-News that the district has an “obligation” to investigate any incidents related to things like bullying and harassment, even if a situation doesn’t end up constituting a Title IX complaint.
“I don’t feel that we truly got hung up on the actual policy language and the back-and-forth that occurred,” he said, “because we were still just supporting the investigatory process.”
He also pointed to Oswego 308’s “Equity and Rightful Presence” policy, adopted in 2024, as addressing the experiences of marginalized groups in Oswego schools.
“It doesn’t matter if the law says you can’t recognize gender identity as … something that’s harassment-worthy,” Bell said. “We’re still going to say, ‘We have a kid in front of us that’s struggling.’”
Bell said he’s directed district employees to come to him with their concerns, even if they don’t end up rising to the level of a Title IX violation, and said he’d generally consult the district’s legal representation on any such issues. He said the district recently had a training session with representatives from every school building, along with administrators and investigators, to discuss the most current Title IX rules.
“People are at the center of this,” he said. “A person’s perspective, a person’s perception and the way in which a person feels isn’t always classified by a policy, by a rule, by a legislative statute.”
The Associated Press contributed.
mmorrow@chicagotribune.com
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