‘Riddled with flaws’: OK AG sues Biden Administration over new Title IX rules, OSDE seeks to sue too

OKLAHOMA CITY (KFOR) – Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond has filed a lawsuit against the Biden Administration’s amended Title IX rules.

The U.S. Department of Education finalized Title IX rules on April 19. Those changes will go into effect August 1.

LOCAL NEWS: State Superintendent tells school districts not to comply with new Title IX rules

President Joe Biden’s regulation is meant to clarify schools’ obligations under Title IX, the 1972 sex discrimination law originally passed to address women’s rights. It applies to elementary schools, high schools, and colleges that receive federal dollars.

One of the biggest changes to Title IX protects LGBTQ+ students.

The final regulations of Title IX per the U.S. Department of Education’s press release on April 19:

• Protect against all sex-based harassment and discrimination. The final rule protects all students and employees from all sex discrimination prohibited under Title IX, including by restoring and strengthening full protection from sexual violence and other sex-based harassment. The rule clarifies the steps a school must take to protect students, employees, and applicants from discrimination based on pregnancy or related conditions. And the rule protects against discrimination based on sex stereotypes, sexual orientation, gender identity, and sex characteristics.

• Promote accountability and fairness. The final rule promotes accountability by requiring schools to take prompt and effective action to end any sex discrimination in their education programs or activities, prevent its recurrence, and remedy its effects. The final rule requires schools to respond promptly to all complaints of sex discrimination with a fair, transparent, and reliable process that includes trained, unbiased decision makers to evaluate all relevant and not otherwise impermissible evidence.

• Empower and support students and families. The final rule protects against retaliation for students, employees, and others who exercise their Title IX rights. The rule requires schools to communicate their nondiscrimination policies and procedures to all students, employees, and other participants in their education programs so that students and families understand their rights. The rule supports the right of parents and guardians to act on behalf of their elementary school and secondary school children. And the rule protects student privacy by prohibiting schools from making disclosures of personally identifiable information with limited exceptions.

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State Superintendent Ryan Walters has since sent Oklahoma public schools superintendents a letter telling them to not make any district policy changes based on the new Title IX regulations.

In the letter Supt. Walters wrote, “I hope and expect there to be a preliminary injunction and possibly a permanent injunction that would delay the implementation of these rules while the rule is decided in federal court, which could be an indefinite amount of time.”

Supt. Walters has previously threatened legal action when the U.S. Department of Education first proposed the new rules in 2023.

As of Monday, the State of Oklahoma is now suing the Biden Administration over Title IX changes.

Filed in U.S. District Court in the Western District of Oklahoma, the suit asserts that the U.S. Department of Education (USDOE) under Education Secretary Miguel Cardona has created an “unconstitutional reworking of Title IX protections.”

“In doing so…it ignores the literal text of the statute and the purpose behind the creation, it disregards the lack of public support for the proposed rule, and it jeopardizes the equal opportunity that has been afforded to female athletes ever since the establishment of the statute,” states the filing. “The Department attempts to make these drastic and detrimental changes while relying on a Supreme Court case that has no connection to Title IX. Perhaps worst of all, implementation of the Final Rule would serve to isolate and deny the group of athletes that the statute was originally designed to promote and protect – female athletes.”

The suit notes that the changes harm female students.

“Students of both sexes will experience violations of their bodily privacy by students of a different sex,” the lawsuit states. “Indeed, the Final Rule also ignores psychological and safety concerns. For instance, a recent study points out that ‘limited research has explored girls’ experiences of competing on boys’ sports teams,’ noting unique challenges to female athletes. Female athletes describe ‘having to navigate tensions and problematic assumptions of girls’ inferiority in sport.’ Meanwhile, research shows that female athletes are more willing to participate in single-sex athletics and less likely to feel self-conscious in single-sex athletics.”

The litigation also notes that the rule violates the Tenth Amendment by usurping authority belonging to the States and to Congress. The Title IX change “conflicts with Oklahoma state law prohibiting transgender girls from taking part in women’s sports and requiring school bathroom use according to biological sex, not gender identity,” states a press release from the AG’s office.

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In addition to the state’s lawsuit, Supt. Walters announced via social media the Oklahoma State Department of Education is also filing a lawsuit and will be the first education department to do so.

“The Biden Administration is at war with women. They are at war with common sense. Wokeism has rotted their brain and had them push the most radical agenda our states have ever seen,” said Supt. Walters.

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