“Florida rejects Joe Biden’s attempt to rewrite Title IX,” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said in a video message posted on X on Thursday.
“We will not comply and we will fight back,” he said. “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.”
Oklahoma State Superintendent Ryan Walters called the change an attack on states, families, and women. He instructed school districts to not comply with the administration’s definition.
“Biden’s rewrite of Title IX is one of the most illegal and radical moves we have ever seen from the federal government,” Walters said. “Oklahoma will not sit idly by while radicals trample on the Constitution and take away women’s rights. We are taking swift and aggressive action against Biden in his war on women.”
Currently, West Virginia is facing a legal challenge against its law that prohibits biological males from engaging in women’s and girls’ athletic competitions. The lawsuit accuses the state of discriminating against males who self-identify as women. It bases its argument on Title IX’s prohibition on sex discrimination — a claim used in the lawsuit before the federal government officially changed its interpretation.
An appellate court ruled against West Virginia, but the state’s lawyers at Alliance Defending Freedom are appealing to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Sharp said the administration’s redefinition of sex discrimination does not change the legal argument used to defend these state laws.
He told CNA that the administration’s change is “unlawful” and that these interpretations “violate the plain meaning of Title IX,” which is “built upon an understanding that there are … only two sexes.”
“The legal approach is exactly how it’s always been,” Sharp said.
Penny said the administration’s redefinition of sex goes against the “entire purpose and history and mission” of the ratifiers of Title IX, which she said “was a significant movement for the women’s liberation movement.”
Now those who defend the traditional understanding of the law, she noted, are seen as “being conservatives or libertarians.”
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“Sex has always meant [the] biological distinctions between men and women,” Penny said.
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