When it comes to the current occupant of the White House and the energetic acolytes of progressivism who surround him (sometimes literally, to camouflage his shuffling gait), every day brings new adventures in governmental mischief.
Luckily, we have red-state governors — one in particular leaps to mind — and attorneys general who faithfully defend federalism and the written word. One hopes they never tire in their commitments.
WATCH: DeSantis on Florida's lawsuit against Biden's Title IX "overhaul"
— Florida’s Voice (@FLVoiceNews) April 30, 2024
"Injecting men into women's bathrooms and locker rooms is not good for women."
"This is bad policy, but it's also not constitutional. That is not what the law says. They are twisting the law."
"In Florida… pic.twitter.com/VEBzRAecVa
In support of both (federalism, words as written) Monday, Florida became one of several crimson states to sue the Biden Administration over its egregious, outrageous, contemptible, and downright witless retranslation of Title IX. (It’s also really, really bad.)
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – Florida and several other states filed a lawsuit Monday challenging the Biden administration’s “overhaul” of Title IX, a statute originally meant to prevent discrimination on the basis of sex.
The state said the Title IX rewrite updates protections to include “gender identity” and “sexual orientation.”
“Biden’s new Title IX rules shred protections for women—that so many fought for over decades,” said Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody. “The idea that young girls can now legally be forced to undress in the same room with males in what is supposed to be a safe space like a locker room, that a young woman could be randomly assigned a roommate that is a biological male with little to no say over the matter, or that biological men would be eligible for women’s scholarships is ludicrous.”
Florida and the other states in the lawsuit — Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina — and joined by several conservative activist groups, are asking the federal court in Tuscaloosa, Ala., to overturn the rewrite. Louisiana and Texas, separately, filed similar suits. Others coming on board include South Dakota, Indiana, and Tennessee. Good on them all.
The states’ objections are rooted in an unequivocal and enduring understanding of the 52-year-old civil rights statute, as laid out by the Louisiana brief.
“The Final Rule drives a dagger through the heart of Title IX’s mandate,” states contend in the Louisiana court filing. “The central feature of the Final Rule is the Department’s extraordinary move to transform Title IX’s prohibition of discrimination based on ‘sex’ to include discrimination based on ‘gender identity,’” which the lawyers call “a wildly ambiguous term.”
The regulation, left unchallenged, could invalidate several state laws adopted in recent years — and it could preempt some under consideration by state lawmakers, including in Louisiana. The regulation applies to all schools that receive federal funding.
The states say the rule prohibits single-sex bathrooms and locker rooms, “compels school officials both to use pronouns associated with a student’s claimed ‘gender identity’ and to force students to do so as well,” and that it “cannot help but sound the death knell for female sports.”
Adds the Independent Women’s Forum, one of the plaintiffs joining Florida et al., “This new Omnibus Rule, which governs all aspects of the educational experience, turns Title IX on its head through extra-statutory regulations that require schools to allow males to self-identify into women’s spaces, opportunities, and athletics.”
Ah, modern-day rewriters instruct us, but for all their proper desire to set a fair table for guys and dolls across the fruited plain, Congress and President Nixon existed in the Dark Ages of chromosome-linked determinism. Sex and gender were one back in the day. Sex was to gender as baseball was to baseball.
Progressives in their wisdom never weary of telling us how much we’ve evolved since then. Also that Congress can scarcely be expected to keep up. So, until/unless the Supreme Court rebukes them, they’ll generously save our elected representatives the trouble of updating laws overtaken by modernity (as perceived by the left’s galloping sensibilities).
Red state executive branches, with defense of duly passed statutes preserving biological females’ spaces in mind, have this to say:
“We will not comply and we will fight back. 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,” vowed Gov. Ron DeSantis.
The Title IX reinvention is about a lot of things, of course, but the White House wants you to believe it isn’t at all about gender-dysphoric bio-dudes invading girls and women’s sports. Sports? No way. It’s about providing authorities the tools they need to preserve the safety, dignity, and equality of alphabet people on our nation’s campuses. But specifically athletes? C’mon, Jack.
Even the Department of Education says the rule-making pertaining to sports “is still ongoing.” See? If DOE says the rewrite so far doesn’t apply to athletics and athletes, what’s up with this fresh round of pouncing and seizing on the right?
Just this, from the DOE’s Title IX Final Rule Overview fact sheet:
The final regulations also provide greater clarity regarding: the definition of “sex-based harassment”; the scope of sex discrimination, including schools’ obligations not to discriminate based on sex stereotypes, sex characteristics, pregnancy or related conditions, sexual orientation, and gender identity; and schools’ obligations to provide an educational environment free from discrimination on the basis of sex. (Emphasis added.)
Nothing to do with athletes and athletics? Cheeky. But the games women play may, in fact, be the least of the worrisome aspects of this smarmy, disgusting, gawdawful gambit. On behalf of sad, confused, trend-chasing folk — who deserve our love, care, and support, by the way, if not our indulgences — President Biden and his burn-it-down minions reveal almost daily their contempt for tradition-laced normalcy.
The Title IX edict is more evidence, if more evidence was needed, why four more years is unacceptable.
