Florida Governor Ron DeSantis declared on Tuesday that his state has initiated legal action against the administration following the Department of Education’s implementation of substantial modifications to Title IX. He accused President Joe Biden of overstepping his constitutional powers.
DeSantis made the announcement of the lawsuit on social media, revealing that Alabama, Georgia, and South Carolina are also participating in the legal challenge. The lawsuit contests the changes made by the Biden administration to Title IX, particularly the prohibition of schools from barring biological males from competing in women’s sports, along with other provisions.
“Florida is suing the Biden Administration over its unlawful Title IX changes. Biden is abusing his constitutional authority to push an ideological agenda that harms women and girls and conflicts with the truth,” DeSantis wrote. “We will not comply, and we will fight back against Biden’s harmful agenda.”
The complaint includes plaintiffs such as The Independent Women’s Law Center, Independent Women’s Network, Parents Defending Education, and Speech First, Inc., in addition to the states, as reported by Fox News. The alteration made by the Biden administration to Title IX redefines “sex” as “gender identity” and “sexual orientation.” It also requires schools to ensure that students use the “preferred pronouns” of their peers. Failure to comply could lead to the loss of federal tax dollars.
According to Fox, the regulation also prohibits schools from segregating or treating individuals differently based on sex, allowing locker rooms and bathrooms to be designated based on gender identity. Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr filed the lawsuit on Monday, arguing that the change poses a threat to women and would undermine women’s sports.
“The Biden administration is destroying women’s sports by gutting commonsense provisions that protect female athletes and demanding that biological males be allowed to compete against females,” Carr said in a public statement. “Today we have taken action to defend women’s rights to fair competition, and we will keep fighting until we end this absurdity once and for all.”
Biden is explicitly accused of illegally bypassing Congress to enact his agenda. “While different administrations can have different policy views, they cannot override the text that Congress enacted in 1972 or overrule the binding precedent of this circuit. The Biden rule does both—to the detriment of the States, their schools, and their students. For a host of reasons, this new rule violates the Administrative Procedure Act and should be set aside,” the lawsuit reads.
Carr has previously objected to Biden’s Title IX revision, which was first proposed in July 2022. He called on the NCAA to protect women’s sports by reversing the policy allowing biological males to participate in women’s sports. Carr has also supported similar legal initiatives in support of Arizona and West Virginia’s “Save Women’s Sports Act.” On the other hand, DeSantis and the state’s most prominent resident, former President Donald Trump, have apparently reconciled after their contentious split during the former’s bid for the GOP nomination, which concluded earlier this spring.
According to the Washington Post, the pair met privately in Miami, “breaking a years-long chill between the presumptive Republican nominee and his onetime chief primary rival.”
