New posts defaulting to publish (Classic Editor)

• WordPress: 5.7.1
• PHP: 7.4.16
• Rank Math: 1.0.62
• Classic Editor: 1.6

This is a rather obscure behavior that appears to only be an issue when using Classic Editor and when the user rearranges the Publish meta box to be at the bottom of the post editor page.

When the Publish meta box is at the bottom, new posts are defaulting to “Status: Publish” rather than “Status: Draft“.

I disabled all plugins except for Classic Editor and everything is fine – new posts default to “Status: Draft.” However, when I enable Rank Math (and have the Publish meta box dragged to the bottom of the post editor), new posts default to “Status: Published”.

I’m not sure what I can do to fix this (ie, all new posts should default to Draft), but for now I told the users to drag their Publish box back to the side (or at least above the editor box; I agree that it’s a goofy way to layout boxes, but I am not the users).

I tried downgrading to 1.0.60.1 and 1.0.59.1, but the issue remains.

To reproduce:

1. Install and activate latest Rank Math and Classic Editor plugins
2. Set default editor to “Classic editor” (we also have “Allow users to switch editors” set to No)
3. Add a new post
4. Drag the “Publish” meta box to be the last item at the bottom of the post editor
5. Refresh the page

When I do the above, the post status now defaults to Publish rather than Draft.