As reported by K-12 Dive, the U.S. Department of Energy has canceled plans to issue a rule that would have removed a regulatory requirement for schools receiving funding from the agency. The requirement in question was meant to level the playing field between boys and girls in athletics. Specifically, the Energy Department’s new rule would have no longer required schools receiving Energy Department funding to provide girls a chance to try out for contactless boys’ sports teams in cases where no equivalent sports team exists for them. Under current requirements, girls must be allowed to try out for spots on the boys’ baseball team if there is no girls’ softball team.
In May 2025, the Trump administration quietly proposed rescinding this requirement, along with a handful of other regulatory changes, by issuing a “direct final rule.” That process is usually reserved for uncontroversial regulations that are not expected to receive pushback, allowing an agency to issue new policies without incorporating changes based on public feedback.
However, on September 10th the Energy Department said it was withdrawing the proposed change entirely after it received over 21,000 comments — many of them opposing the changes. The rescission came after the administration initially delayed the rule’s July 14 effective date until Sept. 12 amid significant pushback.
Regardless, a handful of other changes remain on the Energy Department’s docket that would impact schools receiving the agency’s grants. For example, the agency still plans to move forward with a rule that would no longer require schools to prevent systemic racial discrimination that may result from seemingly neutral policies. The Energy Department has twice delayed that proposal’s effective date as a result of pushback, most recently to December 9, 2025.
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