The administration’s rewrite of Title IX changes the category of “sex” to “gender identity" in a federal law that was viewed as landmark legislation in 1972 when it promised equal rights for women under civil rights law.
The newly announced changes, which come from the U.S. Dept. of Education, are scheduled to take effect Aug. 1.
“Thirteen minutes after the rule was published, I filed my lawsuit,” Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill told the Washington Watch program Tuesday.
Mississippi, Montana and Idaho joined Murrill at that time but that was just the start. Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti told Outkick that his state and six others are challenging the changes.
Also growing is the list of governors and state superintendents who have advised their local school districts not to comply with the new Title IX rules.
Like a football team on defense, the goal is for the courts to delay implementing the changes and then, now on offense, to find them unconstitutional.
In the Outkick interview, Skrmetti said the new Title IX rules can easily be exploited to punish girls who speak out against sharing public spaces with biological males.
“If a boy walks into a girls’ locker room, and a girl says that makes her uncomfortable, that girl could be liable for a civil rights violation,” he warned.
Redefining tolerance and civil rights
West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey, whose state is also signed onto the lawsuit, says the administration is using the threat of government funding for schools – “massive” amounts – in order to “turn the law on its head and implement radical goals.”
This is about more than education, Morrissey told Outkick. “It involves the future of society if you can’t protect women’s safe spaces and privacy,” he said.
By substituting the phrase "gender identity" in place of sex, he said, women become treated as “second-class citizens.”
The irony is the changes come as a record number of viewers watched the NCAA Women’s Basketball Tournament and as former Iowa star Caitlin Clark became a household name with her long-range 3-point shots and no-look passes. Clark connected with legions of fans, male and female, as she became the top pick in the WNBA draft and signed a $28 million endorsement deal with Nike.
“Title IX was signed by President Nixon in 1972 after examining and finding pervasive discrimination against women in educational opportunities," Murrill said of the law. "For 50 years, it's been enormously successful in providing and facilitating opportunities for women in equal measure with men in the biological sexes sense."
By inventing a new "gender identity" definition, Murrill said, implementing the redefined Title IX would immediately discriminate against women in the very law that was created to protect women.
Louisiana’s Cade Brumley and Oklahoma’s Ryan Walters were among the first state superintendents to advise non-compliance for their schools.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott this week ordered the Texas Education Agency to ignore the new Title IX. Texas is also suing to block the changes.
Biden’s ‘ham-handed effort’
In a letter to Joe Biden on Monday, Abbott told the President his “ham-handed effort to impose a Leftist belief onto Title IX exceeds your authority” and also “tramples” Texas laws to protect women’s sports.
In an interview with AFN, attorney Ian Prior of America First Legal said the law firm is working on a Title IX lawsuit in cooperation with the Texas attorney general, Ken Paxton.
Because the purpose of the Title IX law is plainly written, Prior said, an attempt by the executive branch to redefine it is a serious problem if it is not challenged and stopped.
"It goes beyond the rights of students, the rights of teachers at these schools, but it strikes at the heart of separation of powers in the United States government," he said.
If Biden’s Title IX isn’t defeated, Murrill predicts education from kindergarten to higher ed will become a “propaganda machine” for the Left. That means the youngest and most innocent children, she said, will be required to adhere to gender ideology.
"That child can be punished. Any adult who doesn't punish or act on it can be punished. I mean, it’s creating a punishment system for disagreeing with their gender ideology,” Murrill said.
