Kansas AG Kris Kobach sues President Biden over Title IX change protecting gender identity

Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach is suing the Biden administration over a new federal rule protecting gender identity from sex-based discrimination at federally funded schools.

Title IX was created to give women equal access to educational and athletic programs at public schools and colleges. The Department of Education under President Joe Biden's expansion of protections toward transgender people doesn't mention athletics, but Kobach said the rule is written broadly enough to apply.

"The rule change uses sweeping language, in part because they don't want to highlight the effect that it will have on athletics," Kobach said.

Local student athletes join Kansas attorney general

Kobach is joined in his suit with attorney generals from Alaska, Wyoming and Utah, and was joined at the lectern by two Topeka-area student athletes, Aubrey and Avalon Simpson, and their attorney. Aubrey Simpson, who will next year compete in collegiate volleyball, said she worries that she may one day be forced to compete with transgender athletes.

"I have worked incredibly hard to earn a scholarship and be the best I can be in sports," she said. "But now, some officials in Washington are threatening to erase all of that. Because these new Title IX changes, I may be forced to compete against boys who are bigger and faster and stronger than I am. I may have to share locker rooms, restrooms and even shower areas or changing rooms with them."

Aubrey and Avalon Simpson are the daughters of Shanna Simpson, who ran for a seat on the Washburn Rural School Board in 2021 on policies that included opposition to COVID-era policies like mask and vaccine mandates. Their legal representative, Rachel Rouleau, is from Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative Christian legal advocacy group that the Southern Poverty Law Center deemed an anti-LGBTQ hate group — a charge ADF denies.

Other provisions in the rule change

Though the main focus was on athletics, Kobach also said the rule change would violate protections for religions, right to free speech and free exercise of religion, the separation of powers between legislative and executive branches and Tenth Amendment separation of state and federal powers.

At least 11 states have implemented some form of a bill requiring people to use bathrooms that correspond with their biological sex. The rule could then conflict with state laws, forcing schools to choose between breaking state law or forfeiting federal Title IX funding. But Kobach says he's hoping the policy can be blocked in court relatively soon.

"Usually, a federal district court can issue a preliminary preliminary injunction relatively quickly. Within a few months, in most cases, and in particularly urgent cases, a court can can sometimes expedite things and do it within a few weeks," he said.

Critics say Kobach is misunderstanding or misinterpreting Title IX

Kansas ACLU Executive Director Micah Kubic said Kobach is either misunderstanding or misinterpreting Title IX in his suit against the rule change.

"The U.S. Department of Education's rules require that schools guarantee that all students, including survivors of sexual harassment, LGBTQ students and pregnant and parenting students, have full and equal access to educational opportunities regardless of sex," Kubic said.

He said Kobach is using the opportunity to advance "his extreme agenda," but that the rule will help protect vulnerable students in Kansas schools.

"Mr. Kobach is claiming that he is standing up for girls and women. But what he is really doing is continuing his decades-long crusade against our shared values and fundamental rights, using his misleading legal interpretations to try to transform the law into a tool that persecutes Kansans instead of protecting them," Kubic said.

Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly said the lawsuit is unlikely to make a positive impact in constituent lives.

"I wish that we would focus on issues that really make a difference in Kansas lives. And I would suggest that that makes a difference in very few people's lives, and not in a good way," Kelly said.

This article originally appeared on Topeka Capital-Journal: Kansas AG sues President Biden over Title IX gender identity change