A critical battle for women’s rights is looming over the horizon after the Biden administration revamped Title IX guidelines to include biological males experiencing gender dysphoria.
The new changes could have dire ramifications for women’s spaces in the realm of academia, which is precisely what the progressive gender agenda entails.
Governments in red states, along with conservative organizations, are already fighting back against President Joe Biden’s push to leverage federal power to impose this agenda on the rest of the nation, which seems to suggest that a war in federal courts is closer than we might think.
Top education officials in Florida, Louisiana, Wyoming, South Carolina and Oklahoma have publicly rebuked the Biden administration’s new Title IX regulations that add protections for transgender students, arguing that the new policies roll back the rights of women and girls by expanding the landmark civil rights law’s definition of sex discrimination to include gender identity.
In a letter this week to district boards and superintendents, South Carolina Education Superintendent Ellen Weaver, a Republican, called the new rules “deeply troubling” and advised schools to disregard them. Cade Brumley, Louisiana’s education chief, similarly recommended that schools ignore the updated rules, which he said likely violate state and federal law.
Laws passed in more than a dozen Republican-led states prevent transgender students from using school restrooms and locker rooms that match their gender identity or allow teachers and students to disregard a trans person’s name and pronouns. Adhering to such laws may violate the new Title IX regulations, a senior administration official said, if doing so creates a hostile environment.
“It is inevitable that there will be a legal challenge to the new rules,” Brumley, who is also a Republican, wrote in a letter to local school officials this month. The state is weighing its options when it comes to challenging the new regulations, Brumley told The Hill, and a lawsuit is not off the table.
Oklahoma and Florida have publicly stated that they would refuse to comply with Biden’s new rules. Oklahoma’s Superintendent of Public Instruction Ryan Walters sent a letter instructing school districts to ignore Biden’s guidelines, arguing that the state will not “bend to the senseless will of Biden and his posse eradicating women’s rights and putting women in danger.”
Walters called on other states to follow Oklahoma’s lead, stressing that it is “time for every state leader to stand up and say enough of this preposterous charade that erases women and puts their safety in jeopardy.”
Shortly after, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis declared in a post on X that the Sunshine State “will not comply, and we will fight back.”
“We are not going to let Joe Biden try to inject men into women’s activities. We are not going to let Joe Biden undermine the rights of parents, and we are not going to let Joe Biden abuse his constitutional authority to try to impose these policies on us here in Florida.”
Florida’s response to Joe Biden trying to inject gender ideology into education, undermining opportunities for girls and women, violating parents' rights, and abusing his constitutional authority:
— Ron DeSantis (@GovRonDeSantis) April 25, 2024
We will not comply. pic.twitter.com/12pnpOU68Z
The Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) has threatened legal action against the Biden administration over the attack on women’s rights.
The new rules, said ADF legal counsel Rachel Rouleau, will “turn back the clock” on Title IX, which has protected students, faculty and staff at schools receiving government funding from sex-based discrimination for more than 50 years.
The Biden administration seeks to force educational institutions to adhere to progressive gender ideology by threatening to cut off federal funding for those who refuse to comply.
The impending court battle could very well determine whether the federal government can be weaponized in this manner. It is one thing for individual universities to push this ideology on their students. It is quite another to use the power of the federal government to force all schools to bow down to the trans agenda.
The upcoming battle will be critical. Red states have already enacted legislation barring transgender individuals from participating in sports of the opposite gender and using restrooms and locker rooms of the opposite gender as well. Biden’s move is an effort to force them to reverse course – at least when it comes to college campuses. Those seeking to defeat this move will be in for a tough battle.
