Source: Semafor
by David Weigel
“What’s most notable about the Virginia fight over Title IX isn’t that the Trump administration is aggressively applying it against liberal school boards. The Biden administration’s own interpretation of the law, which expanded it to include protections for gender identity, was challenged by red states and thrown out by a conservative judge before Trump took office. The real news here is how plainly Democratic candidates are sidestepping the gauntlet that Trump’s administration has thrown. Outside of the deepest-blue areas, the party doesn’t want to elevate stories that point to potential federal overreach against local schools. That’s in part because Democrats expect that the Supreme Court’s conservative majority will continue to side with Republicans and the Trump administration, as it did when it upheld Tennessee’s ban on hormone therapy for trans youth.” (08/20/25)