BIDEN EDUCATION DEPARTMENT’S LATEST “ASSAULT” ON WOMEN’S SPORTS IS ILLEGAL AND UNDERMINES TITLE IX’S SUCCESSES
WASHINGTON, DC (Feb. 21, 2023): Southeastern Legal Foundation (SLF) today joined over two dozen education, civil rights, and parent advocacy organizations in calling on the U.S. Department of Education to halt its announced overhaul of Title IX, which since 1972 has protected women’s rights in education and sports.
The new Biden rule proposes a new definition of “sex” that rolls back 50 years of advancement in women’s sports. It will force America’s schools, colleges, and universities to admit males who identify as females into sex-separated athletic programs in which only biological females would participate. In addition to the Department’s complete lack of statutory and constitutional authority to make these changes, the anticipated rulemaking would create unfair competitive disadvantages for female students in every elementary and secondary school in America’s smallest towns and largest cities.
“Title IX is civil rights legislation, period. The Biden Administration’s extremist proposal to change Title IX threatens and violates the rights of women secured nearly 50 years ago,” said Kimberly Hermann, SLF General Counsel. “The Biden Department of Education’s determination to redefine sex will destroy women’s sports by creating unfair advantages for men who decide to compete in women’s sports.”
Hermann predicts that the new Biden rule will quickly give rise to civil rights lawsuits challenging various aspects of the rule. “The latest proposals from the Biden administration undermine the original intent and later successes of Title IX. We cannot and will not stand on the sidelines as the Department casts adrift hard-won, longstanding women’s rights of all ages in favor of social redefinition driven by extreme ideology,” said Hermann. “That’s precisely what civil rights litigation is all about, and the new rule will bring plenty.”