The agency tasked with advancing America's energy security, developing its nuclear arsenal, and handling environmental challenges is now shaping the landscape of interscholastic sports in the United States.
The Energy Department recently released two direct final rules to modify existing Title IX protections. One of the rules would strike regulations requiring schools that receive federal funds to allow students to try out for opposite-sex noncontact sports teams if schools do not offer the sport to their sex. This change would impact sports such as tennis and swimming.
The Energy Department says "such athletics rules ignore differences between the sexes which are grounded in fundamental and incontrovertible reality while also imposing a burden on local governments and small businesses who are in the best position to determine the needs of their community and constituents." The rule was issued in response to President Donald Trump's executive order "Keeping Men Out of Women's Sports," which directed the Education Department to bring Title IX enforcement actions against educational institutions receiving federal funding "that deny female students an equal opportunity to participate in sports and athletic events by requiring them, in the women's category, to compete with or against or to appear unclothed before males."
