Consistent with the Executive Order (EO) entitled Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government (Defending Women), the U.S. Department of Justice’s National Institute of Justice (NIJ) is providing the following instruction and procedures and is seeking award information on or related to surveys, forms, or other data collection tools that ask about “gender” or “gender identity.”  

Instruction. If an award-funded project includes a survey, form, or data collection tool that asks about “gender” or “gender identity,” it must instead ask about “sex,” with only two available responses: “male” and “female.” A “choose not to disclose” response is not permitted. All questions about “gender identity” must be removed. Therefore: 

• If the project’s survey/form/data collection tool is under development or will be under development later in the project timeline: 

  • Ensure that the question complies with the above Instruction. 

• If the project’s survey/form/data collection tool has been developed, but has not yet been administered:  

  • If it has been reviewed and approved by the Institutional Review Board (IRB) but not by NIJ’s Human Subjects Privacy (HSP) team, change the question(s) to be in compliance with the above instruction before submitting the package to NIJ for HSP review. 

    • This may require resubmission for review and modification approval by the IRB. 

  • If it has not yet been approved by the IRB, change the question(s) to comply with the above Instruction before submitting the package for IRB and NIJ HSP review. 

• If the project’s survey/form/data collection tool has been developed, approved, and administered:  

  • If administration is ongoing, pause administration and change the question(s) to comply with the above Instruction. 

    • This may require resubmission for review and modification approval by the IRB. 

  • Submit the updated package to NIJ for HSP review and approval. Administration of the survey/form/data collection may resume only upon the award recipient’s receipt of notice of NIJ approval. 

Your timely compliance is appreciated. Failure to comply with this directive may affect the award.