Today, Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill is leading the charge against the Biden administration’s illegal expansion of Title IX rules, which would apply burdensome requirements on nearly every school, college, and university in Louisiana and across the nation. This would deprive women and girls of the equal educational opportunities they struggled for decades to secure, and cost states billions of dollars to implement.
For more than 50 years, Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 has protected the rights of both sexes to fully participate in our education system without being subjected to discrimination on the basis of “sex”—a term Congress intentionally used to refer to the basic biological distinction between the human male and human female.
With the change, the Department of Education is eliminating these protections, which were especially meant to protect women and girls. The rules rewrite Title IX, requiring all schools, colleges, and universities that receive federal assistance across the country to disregard the concept of biological “sex.” In their view, prohibited discrimination on the basis of “sex” includes discrimination on the basis of “gender identity”—a term that has no defined or commonly accepted meaning.
The final regulations stand to harm students, parents, teachers, school districts, and states whose own constitutional rights are now in jeopardy, especially their right to Free Speech. If the school chooses not to comply, they risk losing essential Title IX funding while simultaneously facing lawsuits from the federal government and other proponents of these radical mandates. Yet this is also the outcome should the school fail to comply adequately, with standards remaining as vague as "gender identity" itself. In other words, Title IX funding is threatened whether you comply or not, creating an impossible situation for everyone involved.
“This is all for a political agenda, ignoring significant safety concerns for young women students in pre-schools, elementary schools, middle schools, high schools, colleges and universities across Louisiana and the entire country. These schools now have to change the way they behave and the way they speak, and whether they can have private spaces for little girls or women. It is enormously invasive, and it is much more than a suggestion; it is a mandate that well exceeds their statutory authority. This all coming from the people who don’t even know how to define the word ‘woman.’ I’ll always stand up for children and families across this state,” said Attorney General Liz Murrill.
In the case, named Louisiana v. The U.S. Department of Education, Louisiana is joined by the States of Mississippi, Montana, and Idaho.
These are all the school boards that joined our suit: Acadia Parish School Board, Allen Parish School Board, Bossier Parish School Board, Caddo Parish School Board, Caldwell Parish School Board, DeSoto Parish School Board, Franklin Parish School Board, Grant Parish School Board, Jefferson Davis Parish School Board, LaSalle Parish School Board, Natchitoches Parish School Board, Ouachita Parish School Board, Red River Parish School Board, Sabine Parish School Board, St. Tammany Parish School Board, Webster Parish School Board, West Carroll Parish School Board.
To watch the full news conference announcing our lawsuit, click here.