A Texas judge has blocked Democrat President Joe Biden’s attempt to rewrite federal civil rights law to force radical ideology onto school students.
Biden issued a sweeping order to force transgender ideology on schools that receive taxpayer funding from the government.
The ruling from U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor sets back Biden’s effort to redefine Title IX, which bars discrimination based on sex at public schools.
In his ruling, Judge O’Connor wrote:
“To allow Defendants’ unlawful action to stand would be to functionally rewrite Title IX in a way that shockingly transforms American education and usurps a major question from Congress.”
The Biden administration’s Title IX guidance would rewrite the law to include discrimination based on gender identity.
Under the Biden admin guidelines, people can unscientifically claim they have changed genders.
Therefore, treating a male as a male, for example, would violate the guidance if that individual claims to be “female,” despite the impossibility.
Schools that fail to comply could lose federal funding.
The ruling is a win for Texas Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton, who brought the lawsuit.
“Joe Biden’s unlawful effort to weaponize Title IX for his extremist agenda has been stopped in its tracks,” Paxton said.
Title IX was enacted in the 1970s as a legal protection for women.
Judge O’Connor echoed a common criticism of Biden’s rewrite, saying it mangles Title IX “to advance an agenda wholly divorced from the text, structure, and contemporary context of Title IX.”
The Biden admin defended its Title IX guidance by citing the Supreme Court’s ruling in Bostock.
The ruling held that federal civil rights law protects employees from discrimination on the basis of “gender identity.”
O’Connor, a George W. Bush appointee, said Biden’s sweeping guidelines went too far.
“To be clear, this Order does not encourage the outright deprivation of any student’s rights,” the judge concluded.
“Rather, this Order clarifies that the Department lacks authority to redefine ‘sex’ in a way that conflicts with Title IX.”
The guidance that was struck down is separate from a set of finalized regulations that Biden rolled out in April.
Those rules, which are being separately challenged, are set to go into force on August 1.
The rules would force schools to use transgender students’ preferred pronouns.
They would also require that students be allowed to use bathrooms and locker rooms for the opposite sex.
Unsurprisingly, the obvious issues mostly arise from male students using female facilities.
The regulations also revive President Obama’s opaque, Star Chamber approach to adjudicating campus sexual assault claims.
This approach deprived accused students of due process.
The guidance directs schools to use a “preponderance of evidence” standard.
The standard only requires proof that sexual misconduct is more likely to have occurred than not.
President Donald Trump has pledged to undo Biden’s Title IX order on “Day One” of his next presidency.
