Attorney General Ken Paxton is suing the Biden administration after they rolled out a rewrite of Title IX, drastically changing the rules to protect biological men in women’s spaces.
Earlier this month, the Biden administration released a nearly 1,500-page rewrite of Title IX rules—the federal civil rights law designed to prohibit sex-based discrimination in education.
The new version would add “gender identity” as a protected class. It would also force schools to allow biological males to use female spaces. If a school refuses to comply, federal funding would be withheld.
With Biden’s new rule, the Department of Education is now turning to formally amend the Code of Federal Regulations, which Paxton says “violates federal law, ignores the constitution, and denies women the protections Title IX was intended to afford them.”
According to the lawsuit, the new rule also infringes on Texas’ sovereignty by “imposing substantial pressure on Texas to change its laws and policies.”
It states that the rule conflicts with policies adopted by Texas’ political subdivisions regarding sex-separated school bathrooms and locker rooms, pronoun usage consistent with biological sex, and school library materials and instructional resources.
“The Final Rule conflicts with each of the policies by treating them as unlawful sex discrimination and by requiring school districts to change their policies to promote gender fluidity to remain in compliance with the Final Rule,” reads the lawsuit.
The lawsuit requests the court postpone the effective date of the Final Rule and hold it unlawful, declare the Final Rule is contrary to Title IX and exceeds agency authority, and declare the Final Rule was not a result of reasoned decision-making.
“Texas will not allow Joe Biden to rewrite Title IX at whim, destroying legal protections for women in furtherance of his radical obsession with gender ideology,” said Paxton. “This attempt to subvert federal law is plainly illegal, undemocratic, and divorced from reality. Texas will always take the lead to oppose Biden’s extremist, destructive policies that put women at risk.”
In addition to the lawsuit, some Texas lawmakers are calling for action from the Texas House and the Texas Education Agency to protect Texans from the new Title IX requirements.
Gov. Greg Abbott also sent a letter to President Joe Biden condemning the revision and instructing the TEA to ignore his new rule.
“Title IX was written by Congress to support the advancement of women academically and athletically,” reads the letter. “The law was based on the fundamental premise that there are only two sexes—male and female. You have rewritten Title IX to force schools to treat boys as if they are girls and to accept every student’s self-declared gender identity. This ham-handed effort to impose a leftist belief onto Title IX exceeds your authority as President.”
Unless the court blocks the Final Rule, it will take effect on August 1, 2024.
