Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach answers questions from reporters during a news conference outside his office in Topeka, Kan. on May 1, 2023. John Hanna/AP Photo/ File Photo
The Kansas attorney general has sued the administration of President Joe Biden for expanding the anti-discrimination provisions of Title IX to include “gender identity.
Kansas Attorney General Kris W. Kobach announced that his office had filed a lawsuit against the Biden administration over its rewrite of Title IX, forcing schools to allow individuals to participate in school sports teams according to their “gender identity” rather than their biological sex. Mr. Koback announced the lawsuit at a press conference from the State Ceremonial Signing Room at the Kansas State Capitol in Topeka on May 14.
The lawsuit, which specifically names U.S. Department of Education Secretary Miguel Cardona and U.S. Department of Justice Attorney General Merrick Garland, alleges that the “Final Rule,” revising Title IX seeks to politicize the nation’s education system “to conform to the radical ideological views of the Biden administration and its allies.”
“Instead of focusing on the true mission of Title IX, which is to protect women and girls from discrimination in education and to protect and promote women’s and girls’ sports,” the lawsuit argues that the Biden administration is attempting to completely rewrite the measure to “institutionalize the left-wing fad of transgender ideology in our K-12 system and tie school funding to it.”
The lawsuit also claims the defendants want to force colleges and universities to “punish students who refuse to comply with these views through a campus grievance process that is akin to ‘kangaroo courts.’”
The attorney general’s office clarified in a press release that under the Biden administration’s revisions to the Title IX rule, a 16-year-old biological female on an overnight school trip for a sports competition or other event could be forced to share a hotel room with a biological male who identifies as a girl.
It also said that a 14-year-old girl could be forced to share a locker room and change her clothes in front of an 18-year-old biological male who identifies as a female, or again, the district could lose funds.
“It’s insanity,“ Mr. Kobach said in the press release. ”Biden’s Title IX rule is unconscionable. It’s dangerous to girls and women, and it’s against federal law.”
Joining Kansas in the lawsuit are the attorneys general for Alaska, Utah, and Wyoming.
Mr. Kobach was joined at the press conference by Kansas female school athletes Aubrey and Avalon Simpson and their attorney, Alliance Defending Freedom Legal Counsel Rachel Rouleau.
Kansas legislators passed the Fairness in Women’s Sports Act, which requires athletic teams, clubs, or sports that are sponsored by public educational entities to be “expressly designated based on biological sex.”
Democrat Gov. Laura Kelly vetoed the measure on March 17. Kansas lawmakers overrode that veto on April 5.
‘It’s Truly Ironic’
In an interview with The Epoch Times immediately following the press conference, Mr. Kobach said, “It’s extraordinary” how the Biden administration “is doing so many things that are obviously illegal and obviously against the will of the people.”
While Title IX was supposed to protect women in sports, he noted that President Biden’s revision to Title IX empowers men who claim to be female to dominate women’s sports at the expense of biological female athletes.
Surveys from 2021, 2022, and 2023 have consistently shown that the overwhelming majority of Americans believe transgender athletes should only be allowed to compete on sports teams that reflect their biological sex.
“It’s truly ironic that a regulation under Title IX is being used to destroy Title IX’s protection of women’s sports.”
A rally at the White House to press the Biden administration to release the long-awaited final Title IX rule on Dec. 5, 2023. Leigh Vogel/Getty Images
This wasn’t the first time Mr. Kobach felt compelled to file a lawsuit against the current administration.
Mr. Kobach also filed a separate lawsuit against the Biden administration over changes to immigration visa rules and another over the president’s “student loan forgiveness scheme.” Mr. Kobach joined 21 additional states in suing the Biden administration over the rule by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives ATF rule that prevents law-abiding citizens from selling firearms privately. He joined six states in a lawsuit to stop President Biden’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate for federal contractors, arguing that the requirement violates federal law.
Mr. Kobach also said he had never felt the need to file so many lawsuits against an administration until President Biden assumed office.
“Ever since President Biden stepped into the Oval Office, it has been all hands on deck, both by state attorneys general and by private litigants, to stop this madness,” he said.
While he believes President Barack Obama’s administration regularly “pushed the envelope and stretched the meaning of federal law,” Mr. Kobach said the Biden administration is “going far beyond what the Obama administration tried to do.”
“The willingness to twist federal law beyond recognition the way this administration has is unprecedented,” he said. “No presidency in American history has done what the Biden administration is trying to do in terms of defying federal law and using federal agencies to do what they can’t do legally.”
He also noted that the changes to Title IX are particularly egregious because the consequences have the potential to cause permanent psychological harm to minor children and expose them to physical danger.
“Whoever is directing this avalanche of illegal and unconstitutional and nonsensical regulations has to have a bizarre worldview where the law doesn’t matter, common sense doesn’t matter, and the desires of the American people don’t matter.”
Demonstrators listen to the speaking program during an "Our Bodies, Our Sports" rally for the 50th anniversary of Title IX at Freedom Plaza in Washington, on June 23, 2022. Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images
The director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s LGBTQ & HIV Project applauded the order in a press release, saying it was “a relief to have a government that is committed to preventing discrimination as opposed to enabling it.”
The White House subsequently published a Transgender Equality Toolkit outlining the steps that five key agencies are taking to implement his executive order.
In March 2022, the White House implemented changes to federal identification documents like passports and social security records to allow gender identities outside of biological sex.
Over 80 transgender rights advocacy organizations sent a joint letter to President Biden in March, urging him to “swiftly finalize” the changes to Title IX to “ensure comprehensive protections” for “transgender, nonbinary, intersex, and gender expansive youth” to compete in school sports and to “affirming transgender students’ right to play.”
Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) forbids covered entities, including states, from discriminating in health programs or activities “on the ground[s] prohibited under … Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972.” Title IX, in turn, prohibits discriminating “on the basis of sex.”
The Title IX changes implemented by the Biden administration prohibit sexual discrimination in schools and modify language to include sexual orientation and gender identity for LGBT students.
Districts that treat biological males who identify as female differently than biological females would lose federal funding.
Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody filed a lawsuit against the Biden administration over changes to Title IX as well, focused on its effort to force the Sunshine State to fund “gender transition” surgeries for children, which violates state laws.
The complaint alleges that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is “threatening the livelihoods” of physicians who “refuse to provide experimental, sterilizing, ‘gender-change’ interventions” for people “suffering from psychological distress,” including minors.
Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody is seen in a file photograph. Patrick Semansky/AP Photo
Ms. Moody’s office said in a press release that the 2024 Rules exceed the limits of Section 1557 and Title IX by requiring Florida to permit and even pay for the drugs and medical procedures for “gender transition.”
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed SB 254 into law in May 2023. The measure prohibits “sex-reassignment prescriptions and procedures” for minors under the age of 18 and grants Florida courts the authority to gain temporary emergency custody over a minor who is being subjected to or threatened with “being subjected to sex-reassignment prescriptions or procedures.”
It also requires the Florida Department of Health to immediately suspend the license of any healthcare practitioner who is arrested for committing or attempting to provide those services.
Almost half of America’s states have passed legislation banning medical sex-change procedures for minors.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sued the Biden administration over the revisions to Title IX in April.
The Epoch Times reached out to the White House, the U.S. Department of Education, and the U.S. Department of Justice for comment.
Patricia Tolson
Reporter
Patricia Tolson is an award-winning Epoch Times reporter who covers human interest stories, election policies, education, school boards, and parental rights.
Ms. Tolson has 20 years of experience in media and has worked for outlets including Yahoo!, U.S. News, and The Tampa Free Press. Send her your story ideas: [email protected]
