Five Republican-led states have sued the Biden administration over its new rules expanding Title IX — a federal civil rights law that protects students from sex discrimination in federally funded schools — to protect transgender students.
A handful of Republican officials in other states have said publicly they will not enforce the new rules but have stopped short of filing lawsuits.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, a Republican, on Monday sued the Biden administration to block the rules, which will in part ban schools from banning trans students and teachers from using school facilities and pronouns that align with their gender identity, in addition different policy.
Paxton said the expanded rules mandate “compliance with radical gender ideology.”
“Texas will not allow this Joe Biden to rewrite Title IX on a whim and destroy legal protections for women in furtherance of his radical obsession with gender ideology,” Paxton said in a statement. “This attempt to undermine federal law is blatantly illegal, undemocratic and disconnected from reality. Texas will always lead in opposing Biden’s extremist, destructive policies that endanger women.”
Republican attorneys general in Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana and Idaho filed a separate lawsuit Monday, arguing the rule exceeds the Department of Education’s authority, in part because it redefines sex to include gender identity.
“This is all for a political agenda that ignores significant safety concerns for young female students in preschools, elementary schools, middle schools, high schools, colleges and universities in Louisiana and across the country,” Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill said in a statement speech. rack.
The Ministry of Education did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Top officials in Florida and Oklahoma announced they would reject the rules.
“Florida rejects Joe Biden’s attempt to rewrite Title IX,” the Republican administration said. Ron DeSantis said in a video on social media. “We will not obey, and we will fight back.”
Ryan Walters, Oklahoma Superintendent of Public Instruction, said Thursday at a news conference that the state is “taking all actions to oppose this illegal and unconstitutional move by the Biden administration.”
“We have already directed our districts not to comply with this illegal rule change from President Biden,” Walters said. “We don’t allow boys in the girls’ toilets. We don’t allow boys in girls’ sports.”
An increasing number of states have passed laws targeting transgender students. In recent years, half of states have passed measures banning trans students from playing school sports on teams consistent with their gender identity, and 10 states have banned trans school staff and students from using restrooms consistent with their gender identity in K-12 education. schools.
The new Title IX rules codify 2021 guidance from the Department of Education, which directed schools to interpret federal law to protect LGBTQ students from discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity. The directive was a reversal of the Trump administration’s policy that rolled back Obama-era guidelines directing schools to allow trans students to use school facilities that align with their gender identity.
In September 2021, twenty Republican-led states filed a lawsuit, and in July 2022, a federal judge temporarily barred the Department of Education from enforcing the guidelines against those states.
The new guidelines do not specifically address trans students’ participation in school sports, although Paxton and Walters were among Republican officials who mentioned the issue in their statements. In April 2023, the Department of Education proposed a rule that would change Title IX to impose a blanket ban on trans students from participating on sports teams that align with their gender identity, although the measure would allow some restrictions on more elite levels of sports competition, such as high school and college. The department previously planned to release that rule in March, but there have been multiple delays.
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
