Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders (R) on Thursday ordered the state to reject new changes to Title IX that would add protections for transgender students.
Sanders, who once served as press secretary to former President Trump, explicitly rejects the Biden administration’s changes to federal civil rights laws that would ban sex discrimination in schools and education programs receiving federal funding. He is the latest in a growing coalition of Republican governors.
sanders in presidential order The group, signed Thursday, said Title IX regulations finalized last month by the Department of Education, which expand the meaning of sex discrimination to include sexual orientation and gender identity, are “patently ridiculous” and that “male leading to disproportionate participation in women’s sports.” Receive access to women’s and girls’ locker rooms, bathrooms, and private spaces. and competing for women’s scholarships. ”
The order directs schools to continue enforcing state laws that prohibit transgender students from using restrooms, locker rooms, or competing on sports teams that match their gender identity. Schools must also continue to comply with a 2023 Arkansas law that prohibits public schools and state officials from calling minors by names or pronouns that do not match their assigned gender at birth without parental permission.
“If Biden had his way, female college students would shower and change next to male college students, and everyone would go before a disciplinary committee for harassment if they referred to someone using biologically correct pronouns. “Anyone who claims to be a woman will now be able to receive scholarships that were previously reserved for women,” Sanders said Thursday at the Little Rock, Arkansas State University. said at the Capitol.
“My message to Joe Biden and the federal government is we will not comply,” she said.
More than a dozen Republican-led states have sued the Department of Education over new Title IX regulations, arguing that expanding the definition of sex discrimination to include gender identity is illegal. It’s unclear how Sanders will implement his executive order, which is the first to challenge federal regulations.
Education officials in the Republican-controlled state also told schools to ignore the new Title IX rules.
The Department of Education did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but a department spokesperson previously told The Hill that schools “are obligated to comply with these final regulations” as a condition of receiving federal education funding.
Sanders’ executive order promises legal action against the administration “for financial losses (including loss of funding) incurred by states as a result of the Biden administration’s passage of unscientific policies.”
“Only one of these will become law,” Sanders said Thursday. “We are not a group that has tried to circumvent the system, as the Biden administration is doing through the new guidance it is issuing regarding Title IX. We are enforcing and complying with state law, and our We require institutions to comply with Arkansas law.”
The Biden administration has not yet finalized separate rules governing eligibility for athletics.
A proposal released by the Department of Education last April would prohibit schools from adopting policies that categorically exclude transgender student-athletes, but would require high schools and colleges to decide when and where transgender students should be based on their gender identity. It is possible to restrict who can compete.
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