Title IX protection extended to transgender students amid surge of legislation attacking their rights
CBSN
The Department of Education announced Wednesday that transgender students are now protected under Title IX. The federal civil rights law, passed in 1972, protects people from discrimination based on sex, and now, gender identity and sexual orientation, in any educational setting that receives federal aid.
"The Supreme Court has upheld the right for LGBTQ+ people to live and work without fear of harassment, exclusion, and discrimination — and our LGBTQ+ students have the same rights and deserve the same protections," Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona said in a statement. "Today, the Department makes clear that all students — including LGBTQ+ students — deserve the opportunity to learn and thrive in schools that are free from discrimination." The announcement comes amid a difficult year for LGBTQ+ youth. A recent survey from The Trevor Project found that of the nearly 35,000 LGBTQ youth between the ages of 13 and 24 who responded to the survey, 70% said that over the past year, their mental health was "poor" at least most of the time. More than half of transgender or nonbinary youth reported they seriously considered attempting suicide, the survey found.Two Native Hawaiian brothers who were convicted in the 1991 killing of a woman visiting Hawaii allege in a federal lawsuit that local police framed them "under immense pressure to solve the high-profile murder" then botched an investigation last year that would have revealed the real killer using advancements in DNA technology.
In one of his first acts after returning to the Oval Office this week, President Trump tasked federal agencies with developing ways to potentially ease prices for U.S. consumers. But experts warn that his administration's crackdown on immigration could both drive up inflation as well as hurt a range of businesses by shrinking the nation's workforce.
Meta is denying claims circulating on social media that it forced Facebook and Instagram users to follow President Trump's official accounts, saying the changes some users noticed were standard practices tied to the transition of the POTUS account from the previous administration to the incoming one.