FRANKFORT, Ky.- Kentucky and Tennessee are two of the leaders in the national fight to protect equal opportunities in education and athletics for women.
Six attorneys general, including Kentucky’s Russell Coleman, filed a complaint in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky seeking to stop President Joe Biden’s new Title IX rule.
The Biden Administration’s sweeping changes to Title IX overhaul the definition of sex discrimination and harassment to now include “gender identity” and “sex characteristics.” The new rules require K-12 schools, colleges and universities to allow males identifying as females access to women’s sports, bathrooms and locker rooms.
“As Attorney General, it is my duty to protect the people of Kentucky. As a Dad, it is my duty to protect my daughters. Today, I do both,” Coleman said in a statement. “The Biden Administration’s new rule would rip away 50 years of Title IX’s protections for women and put entire generations of young girls at risk. It’s wrong, and we are joining our colleagues in Tennessee to lead this fight for our daughters, granddaughters, nieces and all the women of our commonwealth.”
Any school failing to comply with the new Biden Administration rule – even if they follow Kentucky state law – could lose federal education funding, including access to Free and Reduced Lunch Programs and Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) Grants.
The U.S. Department of Education reports that public and private schools across Kentucky received a total of $1.1 billion in federal funding last year.
“The U.S. Department of Education has no authority to let boys into girls’ locker rooms,” Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti said in a statement. “In the decades since its adoption, Title IX has been universally understood to protect the privacy and safety of women in private spaces like locker rooms and bathrooms. Under this radical and illegal attempt to rewrite the statute, if a man enters a woman’s locker room and a woman complains that makes her uncomfortable, the woman will be subject to investigation and penalties for violating the man’s civil rights. Federal bureaucrats have no power to rewrite laws passed by the people’s elected representatives, and I expect the courts will put a stop to this unconstitutional power grab.”
In addition to dismantling equal opportunities for women, the U.S. Department of Education rule upends existing parental rights, repeals free speech protections and undermines due process, the lawsuit says.
Kentucky’s General Assembly has passed significant legislation in recent years to uphold the integrity of women’s sports and keep radical gender ideology out of the classroom.
