Republican states challenge new Title IX rules protecting LGBTQ+ students
WASHINGTON — Republican states are filing a barrage of legal challenges to the Biden administration’s new expanded campus sexual assault rules, saying they exceed the president’s authority and undermine Title IX’s anti-discrimination law.
At least three federal lawsuits were filed Monday seeking to overturn the new rules. Cases were filed in Alabama, Louisiana and Texas, with support from a total of nine Republican-led states. Tennessee and West Virginia also promised a “multi-state response” on Tuesday.
The lawsuits are the first to challenge Biden’s new Title IX rules, which expand protections for LGBTQ+ students and add new safeguards for victims of sexual assault. The policy was finalized in April and will come into effect in August.
The Ministry of Education did not immediately respond to the lawsuits.
At the center of the dispute is a provision that expands Title IX to LGBTQ+ students. The 1972 law prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex in education. Under the new rules, Title IX will also protect against discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity.
The Texas lawsuit called it a federal overreach that seeks to bring about “radical social change” in the nation’s schools. Attorney General Ken Paxton argued that the 1972 law was only intended to ban discrimination based on “biological sex.”
“This Final Rule tells states and other regulated parties that they must ignore biological sex or face enforcement action and the loss of federal education funding,” the complaint said.
The states involved claim that the updated rules violate their own laws, including those that limit which bathrooms and locker rooms transgender students can use, preventing them from using facilities that align with their new gender identity.
A lawsuit filed in Alabama says the expansion violates state laws on “harassment, restrooms, sports, parental rights and more,” calling it a violation of “sovereign authority.” Florida, Georgia and South Carolina also supported the lawsuit.
The Biden administration’s new rules broadly protect against discrimination based on sex, but offer no guidance for transgender athletes. The Ministry of Education later promised a separate rule on this issue.
Still, Republican states argue in their lawsuits that the latest update could be interpreted as applicable to athletics.
A lawsuit filed in Louisiana said the policy “cannot help but sound the death knell for women’s sports.” Joining that pack were Mississippi, Montana and Idaho.
As a legal basis for the new rules, the Ministry of Education cited a 2020 Supreme Court case that protects gays, lesbians and transgender people from employment discrimination.
The lawsuits question that justification, saying the Supreme Court’s decision focused on employment law, not Title IX. The decision “concerned an unrelated statute enacted nearly a decade earlier, pursuant to a different constitutional power,” without mention of “single-sex bathrooms, locker rooms, and dress codes,” according to the Texas complaint.
The lawsuits also challenge, among other things, new policy changes dictating how schools and colleges should handle sexual assault complaints.
States say the new rules erode accused students’ due process rights and turn campus disciplinary boards into “kangaroo courts.” They are asking the courts to immediately halt and reverse the rules.
The Biden administration’s new rules were proposed nearly two years ago, with a public comment period that drew 240,000 responses, a record for the Department of Education.
The policy reverses many of the changes implemented during the Trump administration that provided greater protections for students accused of sexual misconduct.
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