Texas AG sues Biden administration over Title IX rules expanding protections for transgender students

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) on Monday sued the Biden administration over new federal anti-discrimination protections for transgender students.

The Department of Education this month finalized a set of sweeping changes to Title IX, the federal civil rights law that prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex in schools and educational programs that receive federal funding, after more than a year of delays. The new regulations, which are set to come into force on August 1, cover discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, a provision that has angered some conservatives.

“Texas will not allow Joe Biden to rewrite Title IX on a whim, gutting legal protections for women for the sake of his radical obsession with gender ideology,” Paxton said Monday in a statement. Press release announcing the process. “This attempt to subvert federal law is clearly illegal, undemocratic and divorced from reality.”

The Department of Education did not immediately return a request for comment.

The lawsuit, filed in the Amarillo Division of the Northern District of Texas, will almost certainly be heard by U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, who hears 95 percent of cases filed in Amarillo. Kacsmaryk, the division’s only federal judge, has vehemently opposed laws that protect LGBTQ people, including the Equality Act, which seeks to make classes protected by sexual orientation and gender identity.

Kacsmaryk in 2016 — before being nominated to the federal bench by former President Trump in 2019 — filed a petition in support of the Gloucester County School Board in Virginia, which was sued by a 16-year-old transgender boy after he was Denied access to the men’s bathroom at his school. The student, Gavin Grimm, argued that the school discriminated against him in violation of Title IX.

Kacsmaryk in briefwhich was filed on behalf of eight religious colleges and universities and nonprofit organizations, wrote that “the term ‘sex’ in Title IX should not be construed to include gender identity.”

Paxton, in Monday’s filing, called the Biden administration’s new Title IX regulations “vague” and “overly broad” and said they are based on a misunderstanding of the Supreme Court’s ruling in Bostock v. Wade. Clayton County, which concluded that employees are protected from discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity.

The Biden administration has frequently used the landmark 2020 Supreme Court decision as a basis for building policies that strengthen federal protections for transgender people. A rule finalized Friday by the Department of Health that strengthens the Affordable Care Act’s prohibition on sex discrimination also hinges on the decision.

“O [final Title IX rule] wrongly equates sexual orientation and gender identity discrimination with ‘sex’ discrimination,” Paxton wrote in Monday’s lawsuit, which was filed jointly with America First Legal.

Republican-led states across the country have pledged to reject the administration’s new Title IX rules, arguing that expanding the definition of sex discrimination to include gender identity will harm women and girls and punish individuals who refuse to use the name or pronouns chosen by a transgender person.

Louisiana also sued the government on Monday over the new regulations, which the state’s Republican Attorney General Liz Murrill said “eviscerate Title IX.” Louisiana joined Montana, Idaho and Mississippi in the lawsuit, Murrill told reporters Monday.

All federally funded schools are required to comply with the final regulations as a condition of receiving government funds.

The Biden administration has not yet finalized a separate rule governing athletics eligibility. The proposal presented by the Department of Education last April would prohibit schools from adopting policies that categorically ban transgender student-athletes from sports teams that match their gender identity.