An attorney is confident her client’s lawsuit against the Biden administration will strike down its new Title IX changes as unconstitutional.
“We want and we expect to win the lawsuit and have these rules, this regulation be determined to be unconstitutional because it is unconstitutional,” Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) President and CEO Kristen Waggoner told Fox News Digital.
Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys filed a federal lawsuit Tuesday on behalf of the Texas-based Carroll Independent School District challenging the Biden administration’s updates to Title IX, which expanded protections for LGBTQ+ students. The rule changes, effective Aug. 1, will allow discrimination and harassment claims based on gender identity and sexual orientation.
BIDEN DISMANTLES TRUMP-ERA TITLE IX RULES, SIDESTEPS ISSUE OF TRANS ATHLETES IN GIRLS’ SPORTS
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott announced his state will not be implementing changes to Title IX protections propagated by President Biden’s administration. (AP Photo/LM Otero) (SUZANNE CORDEIRO / AFP) (Photo by SUZANNE CORDEIRO/AFP via Getty Images)
“We want to see Title IX return to the original intent and what the law actually says, which is that the Title IX law was designed to ensure equal opportunities for women and girls, and at the same time, that law recognizes that to have those equal opportunities, you don’t provide identical treatment to men and women,” Waggoner said.
“In order to provide those equal opportunities, we recognize the enduring differences between men and women and boys and girls,” she continued.
The Department of Education’s overhaul of Title IX of the Educational Amendments Act has caused major backlash, prompting pushback from activists and public officials, including Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, who announced that his state would not be implementing changes to Title IX protections.
More than half of the states, all GOP-led, have filed suits against the Biden administration over the Title IX changes.
GOP LAWMAKERS SLAM BIDEN ADMINISTRATION’S NEW TITLE IX PROTECTIONS FOR ‘GENDER IDENTITY’
ADF is representing five lawsuits, challenging the Biden administration’s reinterpretation and “radical agenda on gender identity,” Five of those are represented by ADF, Waggoner told Fox News Digital.
“I think it just underscores the radical agenda that the Biden administration is putting in place through this rule that is redefining Title IX and the school districts themselves,” she said.
Waggoner said the Title IX changes suggest to school districts that employees could face “firing, punishment, and harm.” She added that students are subject to harm as well “if they don’t go along with this agenda.”
“We want to see Title IX return to the original intent and what the law actually says,” Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) President and CEO Kristen Waggoner told Fox News Digital (iStock)
“That includes schools having to sacrifice their locker rooms, their showers, their privacy, their safety, as well as, obviously, the equal opportunities that come from being able to participate in scholarships and athletic opportunities as well,” Waggoner said.
The Department of Education sent Fox News Digital a statement saying the department went through a “rigorous process” on the new rules.
“The Department crafted the final Title IX regulations following a rigorous process to give complete effect to the Title IX statutory guarantee that no person experiences sex discrimination in federally-funded education,” the statement reads. “As a condition of receiving federal funds, all federally-funded schools are obligated to comply with these final regulations, and we look forward to working with school communities all across the country to ensure the Title IX guarantee of nondiscrimination in school is every student’s experience.”
Joshua Q. Nelson is a reporter for Fox News Digital.
Joshua focuses on politics, education policy ranging from the local to the federal level, and the parental uprising in education.
Joining Fox News Digital in 2019, he previously graduated from Syracuse University with a degree in Political Science and is an alum of the National Journalism Center and the Heritage Foundation’s Young Leaders Program.
Story tips can be sent to joshua.nelson@fox.com and Joshua can be followed on Twitter and LinkedIn.