After a highly contentious two-year-long review process, the Biden administration’s new Title IX regulations went into effect on Aug. 1 in thousands of school districts across the country.
The administration says the regulations expand protections for LGBTQ+ students, pregnant students, and postpartum students. They also set out new procedures for grievance and due process complaints.
Many parents and policymakers feel otherwise. They vigorously oppose the regulations on the grounds that the new rules on sex discrimination include gender identity, which opponents of the regulations have long contended is not consistent with the language of Title IX (see here and here).
The implementation of the regulations has been challenged by 26 states, as well as by individual school districts, students, and private groups. The legal success of opponents in challenging the implementation of the regulations has produced a crazy quilt of jurisdictions, some of which are subject to the new regulations and others that aren’t. The disparity among federal district courts had led many to believe that the U.S. Supreme Court might intervene and try to settle the issue before Aug. 1, but that didn’t happen.
North Carolina is not one of the states that has successfully challenged the regulations. However, that doesn’t mean that North Carolina parents have no recourse. In May of this year, Moms for Liberty and Young America’s Foundation, working with the Southeastern Legal Foundation, brought a case to stop the Biden administration from overhauling Title IX regulations. Lawyers representing the groups argued the new rules eliminate the protections long afforded girls in private spaces and locker rooms and violate First Amendment rights by forcing students to affirm views of gender fluidity and transgenderism that violate personal beliefs and the tenets of science.
In early July, a federal court in Kansas issued an opinion that temporarily halted the Biden administration’s overhaul of Title IX regulations. The lawsuit brought by the Southeastern Legal Foundation and the Mountain States Legal Foundation on behalf of their clients, Moms for Liberty and Young America’s Foundation, as well the states of Kansas, Alaska, Utah, and Wyoming. The order prohibits the U.S. Department of Education from enforcing a new rule against these states as well as every school attended by the members of Young America’s Foundation and the children of Moms for Liberty members. The order was subsequently clarified in two subsequent court documents and expanded to include the names of the schools attended by children of Moms for Liberty members (see here and here).
This is a considerable victory in that it gives parents a voice in deciding what is and is not taught in their children’s schools. To find out more about how you how you can help to stop the implementation of new Title IX regulations in your school, contact Moms for Liberty or the Southeastern Legal Foundation.
