Florida joined a group of states that filed a federal lawsuit against the Biden administration seeking to halt Title IX amendments, which extend federal protections against sex discrimination to include LGBTQ+ students.
Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody filed the lawsuit to block the rule on Monday, coinciding with counterparts from states such as Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, and Texas.
It also came as Texas Gov. Gregg Abbott directed the Texas Education Agency to disregard the rule about sex-based discrimination in education programs, which is set to take effect Aug. 1. Abbott said that Biden's directions are "an abuse of authority."
"You (Biden) have rewritten Title IX to force schools to treat boys as if they were 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," he wrote in a public letter.
Gov. Ron DeSantis had done something similar last Thursday, sharing a video in X, formerly Twitter, saying Florida's schools "will not comply" with the federal government's revisions to Title IX.
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
"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: We will not comply," the message said.
"We are not going to let Joe Biden try to inject men into women's activities [and] undermine the rights of parents," DeSantis.
According to a recent analysis by Axios, "rejecting the guidelines could threaten the millions of dollars Florida's schools receive annually."
Biden's administration's new scope for Title IX also sets changes that contradict Florida's laws. Lawmakers have enacted bans prohibiting transgender girls from participating in girls' sports teams and, more recently, revoked a policy that previously permitted transgender individuals to obtain a driver's license reflecting their gender identity.
Biden administration's rule over Title IX
The federal government's guidelines have introduced a series of amendments to Title IX, a landmark 1972 extensive civil rights legislation that forbids sex-based discrimination in federally funded colleges and K-12 schools.
The Biden administration sought to broaden the reach of the 2020 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Bostock v. Clayton County, which clarified that Title VII, a civil rights statute prohibiting employment discrimination based on sex, also extended protection to gay and transgender employees.
However, there are contradictory interpretations regarding the scope of this ruling on school sports.
According to the Tallahassee Democrat, the new rules under Biden's administration failed to specify whether transgender and nonbinary students could participate on a sports team aligned with their gender identity, leaving open the possibility for schools to apply exceptions.
"Taking those considerations into account, the Department expects that, under its proposed regulation, elementary school students would generally be able to participate on school sports teams consistent with their gender identity and that it would be particularly difficult for a school to justify excluding students immediately following elementary school from participating consistent with their gender identity," the U.S. Department of Education says in a statement.
"For older students, especially at the high school and college level, the Department expects that sex-related criteria that limit participation of some transgender students may be permitted, in some cases, when they enable the school to achieve an important educational objective, such as fairness in competition, and meet the proposed regulation's other requirements," the document adds.
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