Paxton, Abbott challenge Title IX changes protecting LGBTQ+ students

AUSTIN (KXAN) — Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and Attorney General Ken Paxton announced separate challenges to federal rule changes extending protections to LGBTQ+ students.

Abbott shared Monday afternoon he sent a letter to President Joe Biden, which detailed how he’s instructing the Texas Education Agency “to ignore your illegal dictate” about Title IX. This is the federal policy prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sex in education programs or activities that get federal funds.

Biden’s new Title IX rules protect LGBTQ+ students, but avoid addressing transgender athletes

“Your rewrite of Title IX not only exceeds your constitutional authority, it also tramples laws that I signed to protect the integrity of women’s sports by prohibiting men from competing against female athletes,” Abbott’s letter read. “Texas will fight to protect those laws and to deny your abuse of authority.”

KXAN reached out Monday afternoon for comment from the TEA about the governor’s directive. This story will be updated once any responses are shared.

The final rule unveiled by the U.S. Department of Education on April 19 expands the definition of sex discrimination to include gender identity and sexual orientation. Some LGBTQ+ advocates said this could make some Republican-backed laws unenforceable, while GOP leaders slammed it as an attack on established protections for cisgender women and girls.

Ricardo Martinez, the CEO of Equality Texas, said he and other LGBTQ+ advocates in the state participated in the Department of Education’s process of finalizing these rule changes. He slammed Abbott for suggesting the state won’t comply.

“The U.S. Constitution says that federal law trumps state law, and that really pisses off both Paxton and Gov. Abbott,” Martinez said. “When you’re power hungry and hellbent on asserting your own vision of the world on everyone, that is hard. Title IX protections are a minimum standard to prevent discrimination. Paxton and our governor literally want to delete whole groups of people from the minimum discrimination protections. That’s fundamentally un-American.”

Texas Rep. Carrie Isaac, R-Dripping Springs, joined other Republican lawmakers who sent letters recently to the Texas Education Agency commissioner, asking him to direct all the state’s superintendents not to comply with the rule changes. She supports the letter Abbott sent Monday.

“First and foremost, Congress is the only body of government that has the authority to rewrite a law, especially Title IX, and Biden’s rewrite is just a plain abuse of his authority and shouldn’t be considered as law at all,” Isaac said. “Number two, it violates the Constitution, and it endangers women.”

Hours before the governor’s letter became public, Paxton said he filed a lawsuit in federal court Monday morning that attempts to block rule changes extending protections to LGBTQ+ students from taking effect.

The lawsuit against the U.S. government, Education Secretary Miguel Cardona and two other Department of Education leaders takes aim at the Biden administration’s recently announced updates to Title IX.

In a statement about the lawsuit Monday, Paxton wrote, “Texas will not allow Joe Biden to rewrite Title IX at whim, destroying legal protections for women in furtherance of his radical obsession with gender ideology. 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.”

A spokesperson for the Department of Education shared a statement Monday afternoon to KXAN’s request for comment about Paxton’s lawsuit.

“The Department does not comment on pending litigation,” the spokesperson wrote. “The Department crafted the final Title IX regulations following a rigorous process to give complete effect to the Title IX statutory guarantee that no person experiences sex discrimination in federally-funded education.  As a condition of receiving federal funds, all federally-funded schools are obligated to comply with these final regulations, and we look forward to working with school communities all across the country to ensure the Title IX guarantee of nondiscrimination in school is every student’s experience.”

Paxton filed the lawsuit in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas, Amarillo Division. It’s unclear when a hearing will be held.

The changes laid out by the Department of Education are set to go into effect on Aug. 1, 2024, and they’ll apply to complaints of sex discrimination regarding alleged conduct that occurs on or after that date.

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