Texas Governor Greg Abbott, a Republican, has questioned President Joe Biden’s authority to expand Title IX to protect LGTBQ+ students and teachers, declaring that the Texas Education Agency will ignore the “illegal dictate.”
In a letter addressed to the Democratic president and dated April 29, Abbott wrote: “Title IX was written by Congress to support the advancement of women academically and athletically. The law was based on the fundamental premise that there are only two sexes—male and female.”
He then accused Biden of having “rewritten Title IX to force schools to treat boys as if they were girls and to accept every student’s self-declared gender identity.” He added: “This ham-handed effort to impose a leftist belief onto Title IX exceeds your authority as President.”
Yi-Chin Lee/Houston Chronicle via Getty Images
This month the Biden administration released a major rewrite of Title IX, an education civil rights law that Congress passed in 1972 that prohibits discrimination based on sex in education programs and activities receiving federal financial assistance. Under the April 2024 amendment, Title IX regulation now extends to all forms of sex discrimination, including sex-based harassment and sexual violence, and redefines sex to include sexual orientation and gender identity—with the goal of protecting the rights of transgender students and teachers.
The new rules prohibit schools from banning transgender students and teachers from using school facilities aligning with their gender identity.
Newsweek contacted Abbott’s office and the White House for comment by email early on Tuesday.
Several Republicans, including Abbott, say that Congress never intended to protect the rights of LGBTQ students with Title IX, which was created with women’s rights in mind.
“Congress wrote Title IX to protect women. Biden, with no authority to do so, rewrote Title IX to protect men who identify as women,” Abbott wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter, on Monday, sharing the letter to Biden. “This tramples Texas laws that prohibit men in women’s sports. I am instructing the Texas Education Agency to ignore Biden’s illegal dictate.”
Congress wrote Title IX to protect women. Biden, with no authority to do so, rewrote Title IX to protect men who identify as women.
This tramples Texas laws that prohibit men in women’s sports.
I am instructing the Texas Education Agency to ignore Biden’s illegal dictate. pic.twitter.com/4G1UXNGWKL
— Greg Abbott (@GregAbbott_TX) April 29, 2024
In his letter to the president, the Republican governor said he instructed the Texas Education Agency to ignore the new rules. “Your rewrite of Title IX not only exceeds your constitutional authority, but it also tramples laws that I signed to protect the integrity of women’s sports by prohibiting men from competing against female athletes. Texas will fight to protect those laws and to deny your abuse of authority.”
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, also a Republican, sued the Biden administration on Monday to block the implementation of Title IX new rules, saying these are in “compliance with radical gender ideology.”
In a statement, he wrote: “This attempt to subvert federal law is plainly illegal, undemocratic, and divorced from reality. Texas will always take the lead to oppose Biden’s extremist, destructive policies that put women at risk.”
Other Republican attorneys general in GOP-led states, including Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana and Idaho filed separate lawsuits against the new regulations on Monday.
Uncommon Knowledge
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.