More than half of the country’s states have sued the Biden administration— as have governors, state education chiefs and even local schools — over their new rules governing Title IX enforcement.
Many have made public statements refusing compliance with the twisted ideological agenda being forced on America’s schools and universities by Biden’s Title IX regulations.
Title IX was established in 1972 to end sex-based discrimination in schools that receive federal funding. Title IX is enforced and regulated by the U.S. Department of Education Office of Civil Rights and the new rules were signed by Education Secretary Miguel Cardona.
President Biden’s Executive Orders 13988 and 14021 directed the development of two sets of menacing Title IX rules, which bear the theme of preventing harm to students by not honoring their “gender identity.”
States should refuse to comply. The risk for noncompliance is losing federal education funds. But it is not as risky as one might think. Most Americans are shocked to learn that government schools only gain an average of about 8% of their education funding from federal sources.
Among other things, these ridiculous regulations expand the definition of sex-based discrimination to include “gender identity” and “sexual orientation.”
The new rules strip away due process rights from students accused of sexual misconduct. Their definition of “harassment” could easily lead to criminal penalties for using the “wrong” pronouns for people identifying with the opposite sex.
While they don’t include the March 2024 proposal that specifically addresses sports, the new rules that go into effect on August 1 prohibit schools from barring transgender students from using women’s bathrooms or locker rooms.
Constitutionally, education policy belongs to states and, moreover, to parents and local communities, not the federal government. But on the off-chance states do lose federal education funding, U.S. Parents Involved in Education (USPIE) has published a Blueprint on how to handle that.
The second step in the Blueprint, which is being implemented in South Carolina, is to conduct a cost of compliance study identifying how much it costs a state to comply with federal regulations. I believe South Carolina will find that it costs close to 50% of the federal revenue it receives to comply with its mandates. This will significantly lower the actual value of federal funds in a state’s education budget and states will begin to realize it is not worth the small percentage of funding to cede control of classrooms to the federal government.
