State Superintendents Respond to Biden Administration’s Destructive Title IX Guidance

April 24, 2024

State superintendents are bucking the Biden Administration’s final Title IX rules—regulations that gut fifty years of progress for women and girls, pose grave threats to free speech, and erase key due process protections for college students.

The Department of Education released its final, 1,577 page rule on Friday, April 19. The overarching goal of the rule is to supplant the definition of sex with “gender identity.” If the rule takes effect on August 1, 2024, it would:

• Threaten the safety of women and girls. The rule opens restrooms, locker rooms, extracurricular activities, and other sex-separated spaces to students based on gender identity rather than biological sex.
• End sex-separated sports programs. Biden’s Department of Justice argues in a West Virginia women’s sports case that Title IX does not permit states “to categorically exclude transgender girls from participating in single-sex sports restricted to girls.”
• Compel student speech. Regardless of deeply held beliefs on sex and gender, students will be forced to call one another by their preferred name and pronouns rather than those that align with an individual’s biological sex. 
• Erase key due process protections for students accused of misconduct on college campuses. Students, just like anybody else accused of crimes, deserve the presumption of innocence. These regulations are an affront to the rule of law. 

Thankfully, state superintendents are taking a stand. PDE Action applauds the courage of these leaders and their dedication to protecting all students, as well as the safety of women and girls. 

Florida

On Wednesday, April 24, Florida’s Voice reported that Education Commissioner Manny Diaz wrote a letter to state superintendents that said the state eduction department “will fight” the Biden Administration’s final Title IX rule.

“The Biden Administration maims the statute beyond recognition in an attempt to gaslight the country into believing that biological sex no longer has any meaning,” Diaz said in his letter. 

Louisiana 

Louisiana State Superintendent of Education Cade Brumley said in a letter to district leaders and school boards that “The Title IX rule changes recklessly endanger students and seek to dismantle equal opportunities for females.” 

Oklahoma 

The Washington Examiner reported on Wednesday, April 24 that Oklahoma State Superintendent of Public Instruction Ryan Walters sent the following letter to school officials.

“I believe these rule changes are illegal and unconstitutional. They violate the First Amendment, the Administrative Procedures Act, and longstanding civil rights protections for women and girls. The ISDE has not been given the legislative or judicial authority to define ‘sex,'” Walters said.

South Carolina 

The South Carolina Daily Gazette reported State Superintendent of Education Ellen Weaver’s letter to district leaders on the Title IX update. 

“South Carolina students are not pawns to be sacrificed in cynical political gambits. Accordingly, our State will defend the inherent dignity of every person, while refusing to upend long-standing federal law, violate common sense, or acquiesce to radical attempts to refine biological reality by bureaucratic diktat.” 

Wyoming

Wyoming Superintendent of Public Instruction Megan Degenfelder released the following statement: 

“I am outraged by the Biden Administration’s action to effectively repeal Title IX protections for women in America. Not only does the Biden Administration continue to attack the protections of biological women and the rights of parents, but it does so without any Congressional action. These rules fully open the door to biological males abusing rights afforded to women by Congress in Title IX, and they also trample on parental rights by requiring K-12 schools to accept a child’s gender identity regardless of biological sex without parental input.

Furthermore, and quite frighteningly, the rules have stripped the accused of proper due process protections and threaten First Amendment rights essential to religious conscience and free expression.

I am actively working with my counterparts across the country and other education organizations regarding how we can effectively litigate or otherwise oppose these offensive rules.” 

PDE Action will continue to update this list as state education chiefs release additional letters or statements on the Biden Administration Title IX rule.