With the Biden administration announcing plans to radically change the federal Title IX program to give protections to biological men in women’s spaces, Republican State Rep. Brian Harrison of Midlothian is calling on House Speaker Dade Phelan to conduct interim hearings on removing federal funds from Texas’ schools.
On Friday, the Biden administration rolled out a nearly 1,500-page rewrite of Title IX rules—the federal civil rights law originally designed to prohibit sex-based discrimination in education.
The new version would add “gender identity” as a protected class, which Harrison says will create a “public education emergency” and put Texas students in “imminent danger”:
Beginning August 1, 2024, the Biden administration is going to force Texas schools to allow sexual predators in elementary girls’ school bathrooms and in girls’ locker rooms. It will be a federal offense if students and teachers fail to use preferred pronouns. Men will be allowed to steal academic and athletic scholarships from women. Our campuses will be returned to the disastrous prior policies of sending sexual misconduct cases to campus kangaroo courts. Furthermore, men will soon be federally required to be allowed to play in women’s sports, likely undoing protections our legislature proudly enacted.
The Texas legislature has the power to stop this. We must act now.
Harrison noted that the only reason Texas would be subject to this new rewrite of the law is because it relies on voluntary federal education funding.
“Texas must act like a sovereign state, stop prostrating ourselves at the altar of the almighty federal government, and combat the move to a post-constitutional America,” wrote Harrison.
To that end, Harrison is calling on Speaker Phelan to issue an interim charge for the Public Education Committee, on which Harrison serves, to “develop a plan to transition away from all K-12 federal education funding, protect Texans from these new Title IX requirements, and eliminate the crushing federal regulations which for decades have burdened our public schools.”
Harrison added, “Texas should lead the nation in defending state sovereignty, the Constitution, and the next generation.”
Phelan has not yet issued interim charges for House committees.
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