BATON ROUGE, Louisiana (LifeSiteNews) — Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill announced that her office is suing the Biden administration over its effort to force widespread recognition and accommodation of LGBT ideology on public education, arguing the White House is actually facilitating “discrimination” rather than ending it.
In February, President Joe Biden’s U.S. Department of Education (DOE) submitted to the U.S. Office of Management & Budget its finalized Title IX rule. Late last month, the administration published the rule, which expands the federal government’s prohibition against “discrimination” to now include under its umbrella “discrimination based on sex stereotypes, sexual orientation, gender identity, and sex characteristics.” Critics have warned it has broad ramifications for sex-specific restrooms, lockers, and athletic programs, speech and conscience rights, and more.
On April 29, Murrill announced that her state is challenging the DOE on the rule in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana. The lawsuit is joined by Idaho, Mississippi, and Montana. LifeSiteNews previously reported that Florida is filing a separate lawsuit.
“The final regulations stand to harm students, parents, teachers, school districts, and states whose own constitutional rights are now in jeopardy, especially their right to Free Speech,” the AG’s office said. “If the school chooses not to comply, they risk losing essential Title IX funding while simultaneously facing lawsuits from the federal government and other proponents of these radical mandates. Yet this is also the outcome should the school fail to comply adequately, with standards remaining as vague as “gender identity” itself. In other words, Title IX funding is threatened whether you comply or not, creating an impossible situation for everyone involved.”
“This is all for a political agenda, ignoring significant safety concerns for young women students in preschools, elementary schools, middle schools, high schools, colleges and universities across Louisiana and the entire country,” Murrill said. “These schools now have to change the way they behave and the way they speak, and whether they can have private spaces for little girls or women. It is enormously invasive, and it is much more than a suggestion; it is a mandate that well exceeds their statutory authority. This all coming from the people who don’t even know how to define the word ‘woman.’ I’ll always stand up for children and families across this state.”
Notably, more than a dozen Louisiana school boards are joining Murrill’s lawsuit: Acadia Parish School Board, Allen Parish School Board, Bossier Parish School Board, Caddo Parish School Board, Caldwell Parish School Board, DeSoto Parish School Board, Franklin Parish School Board, Grant Parish School Board, Jefferson Davis Parish School Board, LaSalle Parish School Board, Natchitoches Parish School Board, Ouachita Parish School Board, Red River Parish School Board, Sabine Parish School Board, St. Tammany Parish School Board, Webster Parish School Board, and West Carroll Parish School Board.
In the meantime, state officials are directing education officials to disregard the new Title IX regulations. “Do not comply with these radical rules from the Biden administration,” Louisiana Education Secretary Cade Brumley said, NOLA reported.
The indoctrination of children with left-wing ideology on sexuality and other left-wing agenda items has long been a major concern in American public schools, from libraries to athletic and restroom policy to drag events to classroom materials to even socially “transitioning” troubled children without parental input. The influential American Library Association, currently helmed by a self-described “Marxist lesbian,” opposes denying children access to age-inappropriate materials.
Despite evidence that “affirming” gender confusion carries serious harms to impressionable young people, including from the Biden administration’s own Substance Abuse & Mental Health Services Administration, Biden refuses to moderate his support for the LGBT movement, including reopening the military to recruits afflicted with gender dysphoria, promoting gender ideology within the military (including “diversity” and drag events on military bases), holding White House events to “affirm transgender kids,” condemning state laws against underage transitions as “close to sinful,” promoting underage transitions (potentially at taxpayer expense) as a “best practice,” and trying to force federally funded schools to let males into female athletic competitions and restrooms.