The Biden administration has expanded some Title IX protections related to pregnancy, transgender people and sexual assault victims. This has drawn praise but also ire from both sides of the political spectrum – the right feels that these measures go too far, while some on the left say it doesn’t go far enough because the protections do not include transgender athletes.

Title IX was passed in 1972 and states that “No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.” It mainly applies to schools and local and state educational agencies, such as colleges and universities, and was created to promote and establish gender equity in schools. It is often seen in relation to giving women athletes the right to equal opportunity in sports in educational institutions that receive federal funds. 

This year, the Biden administration expanded that definition to include protections against “discrimination based on sex stereotypes, sexual orientation, gender identity, and sex characteristics” (Axios). It codifies protections for transgender people, and enhances protections for victims of sexual assault or harassment and for pregnant people, but notably does not include language on transgender athletes. Our analysts examined coverage of this issue in this week’s Topic of the Week.

Each week, Ad Fontes Media chooses a widely covered trending news topic to share insight into how our analysts rank news coverage for the Media Bias Chart®. To do this, we select six articles reporting on the same story from different outlets to show how each treated the subject.

Once we choose a set of articles, pods of analysts with diverse political perspectives (one right leaning, one center, and one left leaning) read each article and use Ad Fontes Media’s content analysis methodology to determine its bias and reliability. These ratings inform the articles’ placement on that week’s special Media Bias Chart.

Our analyst team took a closer look at several articles about the Title IX update from various media outlets last week: “Biden expands Title IX protections for pregnancy, trans people and sexual assault victims” from ABC News, “Biden administration expands protections for LGBTQ+ students” from Axios, “Biden administration unveils new Title IX rules protecting trans students” from LGBTQ Nation, “New Title IX rules offer ‘comprehensive coverage’ for LGBTQ+ students and sexual violence survivors” from 19th News, “Biden’s Attack on Women’s Sports” from National Review, and “Biden’s new Title IX revisions are a repulsive attempt to erase biological truth” from New York Post. While the bias and reliability scores for each of these articles can be found on our Topic of the Week page, we are going to take a closer look at articles from LGBTQ Nation and National Review. 

LGBTQ Nation is an online news magazine that reports on issues relevant to the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer community. It has a pro-LGBTQ+ point of view but doesn’t shy away from keeping a critical eye on the movement itself. Ad Fontes Media analysts have rated several articles from this website and have given it an aggregate score for bias of -10.6 (skews left) and for reliability of 31.39 (opinion or wide variation in reliability). This week, the article scored a -18 for bias (on the line between strong left and hyper-partisan left) and 42.67 for reliability (mix of fact reporting and analysis). 

This article praises the Title IX updates and points fingers at the previous administration: “The new rules, which invalidate numerous anti-transgender policies developed under former President Donald Trump, will go into effect on August 1, before the start of the upcoming school year. Any schools that receive federal funding will be expected to follow the rules or risk federal lawsuits, a DOE investigation, and possible loss of funding.” 

In addition, the article notes that the “new rules are likely to upset Republicans, who have spent the past few years pushing policies that prohibit educators from accommodating trans students.” The left-lean bias for this article came mainly from those two statements. 

The article ended with a plea quoted from the National Women’s Law Center: “We call on President Biden and his administration to finish the job by providing further clarification for inclusive protections in athletics and robustly enforcing Title IX to ensure all students, including transgender, nonbinary, and intersex student athletes, realize the law’s full protections — because all students deserve the freedom to be themselves, to learn and to do their best at school.” 

This is exactly what many pro-LGBTQ news sources said about the Title IX updates: better, but not perfect. Overall, this article was fairly factually accurate, with some left-leaning analysis for context.

National Review is a biweekly conservative opinion magazine founded in 1955. The website publishes commentary, blogs, podcasts, slideshows and videos, and in 2020 added a section on business and economics. Since 2015, it has been published by the nonprofit National Review Institute. The magazine has an aggregate score for bias of 13.45 (strong right) and for reliability of 39.63 (opinion or wide variation in reliability). This week, the article scored 16.67 for reliability (strong right) and 12.33 for reliability (contains misleading information). 

This article begins with: “In a sweeping new Title IX rule, the Biden administration has usurped Congress to undermine free speech, dissolve due process, and redefine sex to include ‘gender identity.’” The article almost immediately pivots to a sentiment from the left: “… the Biden administration frames its Title IX rewrite as separate from the athletics question, saying it will deal with that issue later. But this claim is false. If discrimination ‘on the basis of sex’ includes gender identity, why shouldn’t that apply to sports?” This is a sarcastic hit, not a genuine one. 

The article admonishes the change as “worsening the grave nationwide assault on parental rights” because it allows schools to “transition” children behind the backs of their parents, is a “malignant influence” in health care because it “may require doctors and insurance companies to give drugs and surgeries to gender-distressed children,” and says the Secretary of Education is “playing the public for fools” by trying to “appease the LGBTQ activists in his base.” Whew! 

This article is one-sided and does not address the actual language of the bill, just the interpretation of it through the author’s eyes. It has right-leaning bias for its overt condemnation of the Biden administration, and it scored quite low on reliability for eschewing facts for a hard-right opinion.

These are just two examples of the tens of thousands of articles our analysts have rated for reliability and bias. If you want a look at the larger media landscape or are curious to see how our team has rated your favorite sources, head on over to our website and check out the resources we have available. And don’t forget to come back for another examination of our Topic of the Week.

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Sara Webb is a cybersecurity consultant and former high school librarian from Philadelphia, PA. She holds an M.S. in Informatics and an M. Ed in School Library and Information Technology, and has been a media literacy educator for over a decade. Sara started with Ad Fontes Media in July 2020 as a Media Analyst, and she currently continues in that role and as in-house Media Literacy Specialist. When not engrossed in media literacy projects, Sara can be found at the barn with her ex-racehorse Homer, or training her corgis for dog agility competitions.