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Prohibits HEA-funded colleges from taking adverse actions against students or social organizations solely for limiting membership to one sex and requires equal treatment for single-sex organizations.
Official title: To amend the Higher Education Act of 1965 to provide for certain freedom of association protections, and for other purposes.
Introduced April 1, 2025 by Erin Houchin · Last progress April 1, 2025
The bill strengthens students' and student organizations' rights to form and participate in single‑sex social groups and to receive campus recognition, while reducing institutional authority to enforce nondiscrimination policies — which may produce legal conflicts, administrative costs, and challenges to campus inclusion.
Students at HEA‑funded colleges (and the student organizations they join) gain a federally protected ability to form, apply to, join, and participate in single‑sex social organizations without facing institutional sanctions (e.g., loss of recognition, housing, or programs).
Single‑sex student organizations will be treated on equal terms with other recognized social groups — preserving access to campus resources, recognition, and internal membership autonomy to set their own membership rules.
Faculty retain academic freedom to research and express views about membership practices, meaning the bill does not limit educators’ scholarly or expressive activities regarding these organizations.
Colleges and universities (and taxpayers indirectly) may incur additional legal and administrative costs to revise, defend, or implement policies to comply with the federal protections for single‑sex organizations.
The new protections can conflict with existing campus nondiscrimination policies (including Title IX implementations), creating legal uncertainty and disputes over when institutions may lawfully take adverse actions.
Limiting institutions’ ability to sanction or restrict recruitment/access by exclusionary organizations could harm campus climate and make it harder for colleges to promote inclusion or prevent harassment affecting marginalized students.
Based on analysis of 3 sections of legislative text.
Protects students' right to join, form, and participate in social organizations, including single-sex fraternities, sororities, and private social clubs, at colleges and universities that receive federal Higher Education Act funds. Bars institutions from taking adverse actions against students or organizations solely because they limit membership to one sex, and requires equal treatment in recruitment and campus recognition. Creates a new federal statutory protection added to the Higher Education Act that defines prohibited "adverse actions," clarifies what counts as a "single-sex social organization," and limits colleges' ability to coerce students to waive these protections or to impose unequal recruitment restrictions absent a written agreement.