President signs two orders addressing gender equity
WASHINGTON – President Joe Biden marked International Women’s Day Monday by signing two executive orders creating a Gender Policy Council and reviewing Trump-era changes to Title IX, the federal law prohibiting sex-based discrimination in education.
The first order establishes the White House Gender Policy Council to work with other policy councils to advance gender equality in domestic and foreign policy development, combat systemic bias and discrimination, including sexual harassment, and focus on increasing female participation in the labor force and decreasing wage and wealth gaps.
The council will also focus on transgender rights and supporting care workers, predominantly women of color.
Officials pointed out the COVID-19 pandemic has hit women the hardest: 2.5 million left the workforce in 2020 compared with 1.8 million men. The U.S. Department of Labor’s February jobs report released Friday found Black and Hispanic women showed the greatest declines in labor force participation.
In a statement released by the White House, Biden said the world is seeing “decades of women’s economic gains erased by this pandemic.”
“These global trends damage all of us, because we know that governments, economies, and communities are stronger when they include the full participation of women – no country can recover from this pandemic if it leaves half of its population behind,” he said.
The Gender Policy Council, led by Julissa Reynoso, chief of staff to first lady Jill Biden, and Jennifer Klein, former chief strategy and policy officer for the anti-sexual-harassment group Time’s Up, will work with all Cabinet secretaries and submit an annual report to the president to measure progress on prioritizing gender equality across the government. Biden is likely to name a special assistant and senior adviser on gender-based violence.
The president signed a second order directing the Department of Education to review all of its regulations, orders and guidance to ensure they are consistent with the administration’s promise that all students are guaranteed education free from sexual violence.
The order directs the department to evaluate Title IX changes by President Donald Trump’s education secretary, Betsy DeVos, who dismantled Obamaera rules on sexual discrimination and harassment in federally funded education programs. She implemented regulations that altered the handling of sexual assault allegations on college campuses, giving schools more latitude in deciding whether to report accusations to the Title IX office.