More states are suing the Biden administration over its new Title IX regulations. new Title IX rules mandating anti-discrimination protections for LGBTQ+ students, bringing the total number of states suing the administration to 14.
Last week, Alabama, South Carolina, Florida, and Georgia filed a joint lawsuit against the administration, along with the Independent Women’s Network, Parents Defending Education, Speech First, and the Independent Women’s Law Center. In a separate lawsuit, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) also announced a challenge to the new rules.
Now the state of Tennessee is leading a lawsuit against the new rules and is joined by Kentucky, Indiana, Ohio, West Virginia, and Virginia in its complaint. A separate lawsuit has also been filed by the attorneys general of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Idaho.
The new rules interpret Title IX, which bans discrimination on the basis of sex in education, as a legal protection against anti-LGBTQ+ school policies. The idea is that it’s impossible to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity without taking sex into account, a legal argument that the Supreme Court has already used in its 2020 Bostock v. Clayton Co. ruling with respect to job discrimination. Bostock v. Clayton Co. ruling with respect to job discrimination. ruling with respect to job discrimination.
With these rules, any school that receives federal funding will no longer be able to discriminate against LGBTQ+ students. This could affect states and school districts with policies to out LGBTQ+ students to their parents or ban trans students from using bathrooms that correspond with their gender. The new rules could also give students who face discrimination recourse in federal courts.
In a press conference, Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti (R) invoked the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg as justification for his fight to discriminate against trans youth.
“Title IX has protected women for 50 years,” Skrmetti said, as reported by The Tennessean. “It is a law… built around the idea of men and women, sex binary. As Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg noted, enduring differences between the sexes necessitate things like separate bathrooms, separate locker rooms, separate living facilities, separate sports teams. This is something that our law has recognized for decades.”
The rules, however, do not suggest that schools eliminate single-gender spaces. Rather, they simply require schools to include everyone who identifies as a boy in boys’ spaces and everyone who identifies as a girl in girls’ spaces.
While GOP attorneys general are up in arms about the effect the rules will have on athletics, they do not actually discuss transgender student-athletes and which teams they can play on. The DOE is reportedly planning to issue a separate rule regarding what Title IX means for sports participation.
Skrmetti, however, claimed that with the rules, “a boy can walk into a girl’s locker room at a school and if the girl complains that his presence makes her uncomfortable, she can be brought up for investigation and potential penalties for violating civil rights. The new rules is entirely inconsistent with the text of Title IX and its adoption violates the United States Constitution.
The Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen (R) stated in a press release that the regulations will eventually prevent schools from differentiating between males and females in sports and educational opportunities. It will also unfairly disadvantage women and require boys and girls to share bathrooms, locker rooms, dorms, and even overnight accommodations on a school trip.
He also mentioned that it is aimed at pressuring schools to teach students about gender identity theories popular among progressive parents, ignoring science.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (R) wrote on X that President Joe Biden is using his constitutional authority to push an ideological agenda that harms women and girls and contradicts the truth. “We will not comply,” DeSantis continued, “and we will fight back against Biden’s harmful agenda.” Conservative parent organizations have also voiced opposition to the new rules. Fifty-three groups
signed a letter
led by Parents Defending Education (PDE) stating that trans inclusivity “poses a serious threat to the safety and opportunities of women and girls and violates students’ First Amendment rights” by making them use correct pronouns for trans and nonbinary students even if they don’t want to. The letter also accused the Biden administration of catering to “a small yet vocal group of extreme activists.” On Monday, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said she couldn't discuss the new rule extensively due to the ongoing litigation. “So I’ll just say every student has the right to feel safe in school,” pronouns The new rules are scheduled to come into effect on August 1 and will nullify numerous anti-transgender policies established under former President Donald Trump. The Trump administration spent four years fighting against the legal argument that laws that ban discrimination “based on sex” prohibit anti-LGBTQ+ discrimination, especially in schools. In 2017, then-Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos issued guidance to schools stating that Title IX did not protect LGBTQ+ students, shortly after she and Attorney General Jeff Sessions revoked a guidance from the administration of former President Barack Obama that said the opposite.
The Biden administration had promised to present the newly unveiled rules by January, but the DOE said its release was delayed due to an unprecedented number of over 240,000 comments submitted during the new rules’ 30-day public response period.
In contrast to the conservative backlash, LGBTQ+ organizations have celebrated the announcement, though they also say more is needed. she said.
In a statement both celebrating and criticizing the newly unveiled rules, the National Women’s Law Center
, “As we celebrate this milestone, we recognize that this regulation does not go far enough in making the law’s protections clear for all student-athletes.” The statement was signed by 22 other organizations, including LGBTQ+ advocacy groups like GLSEN, the Human Rights Campaign, PFLAG National, and the National Center for Transgender Equality.
Out gay Rep. Mark Takano (D-CA) wrote, “The Education Department and Biden Administration showed real courage today, delivering on a long-held promise to ensure that the federal government does more to protect all Americans—especially LGBTQ Americans—from discrimination. This groundbreaking rule is a major victory, but we still have much to do. We need to enshrine and expand its protections by passing the Equality Act because for too many Americans, their rights and protections depend on the zip code they live in.”
Conservative state attorneys general have claimed that President Joe Biden is putting cisgender girls at risk by improving safety for transgender children in schools. wrote, “As we celebrate this milestone, we recognize that this regulation does not go far enough in making the law’s protections clear for all student-athletes.” The statement was signed by 22 other organizations, including LGBTQ+ advocacy groups like GLSEN, the Human Rights Campaign, PFLAG National, and the National Center for Transgender Equality.
Out gay Rep. Mark Takano (D-CA) wrote, “The Education Department and Biden Administration showed real courage today, delivering on a long-held promise to ensure that the federal government does more to protect all Americans—especially LGBTQ Americans—from discrimination. This groundbreaking rule is a major victory, but we still have much to do. We need to enshrine and expand its protections by passing the Equality Act because for too many Americans, their rights and protections depend on the zip code they live in.”
