"We will continue to relentlessly champion equal opportunity for all Americans and hold accountable any school or college that violates the rights, privacy, or athletic opportunities of our women and girls," said US Secretary of Education Linda McMahon.
Page B1From§Eachthe sunrise edition — 29 September 2026
Administration fights court to save its mail-ballot rule, kills the women's sports rule without one.
As it ran on the front
The Title IX rule requiring colleges and high schools to provide equal athletic opportunity for women and girls, born in the Biden-era Department of Education, died this week, scrapped by the department under Secretary Linda McMahon.
The trucking rule went quietly. The mail-in voting order has not gone quietly. It has been blocked twice now by the same federal judge, Indira Talwani of Massachusetts, and each time the Justice Department has appealed rather than let the block stand — the second appeal filed the same Friday the trucking rule died without a fight.…
…(cont) The Title IX rule leaves behind a ruling that touches the same office, if not the same regulation. On September 18, a federal judge struck down the department's attempt to cut roughly $600 million from teacher-training grants it had labeled devoted to "divisive ideologies." That case does not save Title IX. It does tell you the habit this department has already formed: write the policy, lose it in court, write the next one anyway, and only fight for the ones that survive to be sued.
Secretary McMahon's release promised the department would "relentlessly champion equal opportunity for all Americans and hold accountable any school or college" that violates it. That is a fine sentence. It is not, itself, a rule with a docket number, a compliance deadline, or a complaint process — the malarkey a parent gets when they call the regional office and ask what standard applies now that the old one is gone.
In lieu of flowers, the department is asked to publish, before the first fall tournament brackets are set, what standard now governs what a school owes its women's teams — not a press release, a rule, with a number the next judge can read.
“They kill the rule protecting girls' sports without a fight and lawyer up twice to save a mail-ballot rule two courts already blocked. That tells you which rules this administration actually needs kept alive. Watch which ones they defend in court and which ones they let die by press release.”
“The Title IX rule was federal overreach anyway — equal opportunity doesn't need a Washington mandate, that's for states to — well, we're appealing the mail-ballot block to keep a federal mandate in place, so — no, that's not what I meant. The Secretary's statement speaks for itself.”
The receipts
· Judge strikes down anti-DEI grant policy at Education Department from the morgue, 18 Sep 2026
· Trump administration moves to relax fuel efficiency standards for commercial trucks from the morgue, 28 Aug 2026
· Trump administration appeals judge’s second block on mail-in voting order from the morgue, 28 Aug 2026
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front. The byline is a pen name for a column drafted by a machine and checked by the editor: how this is made.