Greg Abbott Vows To Defy Joe Biden on Another Law

Texas Governor Greg Abbott, a Republican, has questioned President Joe Biden's authority to expand Title IX to protect LGTBQ+ students and teachers, declaring that the Texas Education Agency will ignore the "illegal dictate."

In a letter addressed to the Democratic president and dated April 29, Abbott wrote: "Title IX was written by Congress to support the advancement of women academically and athletically. The law was based on the fundamental premise that there are only two sexes—male and female."

He then accused Biden of having "rewritten Title IX to force schools to treat boys as if they were girls and to accept every student's self-declared gender identity." He added: "This ham-handed effort to impose a leftist belief onto Title IX exceeds your authority as president."

This month, the Biden administration released a major rewrite of Title IX, an education civil rights law that Congress passed in 1972 that prohibits discrimination based on sex in education programs and activities receiving federal financial assistance.

Under the April 2024 amendment, Title IX regulation now extends to all forms of sex discrimination, including sex-based harassment and sexual violence, and redefines sex to include sexual orientation and gender identity—with the goal of protecting the rights of transgender students and teachers.

The new rules prohibit schools from banning transgender students and teachers from using school facilities aligning with their gender identity.

In response to a request for comment, a spokesperson for Abbott referred Newsweek to a press release by the governor's office and the letter sent to Biden.

A spokesperson for the Department of Education told Newsweek: "The department does not comment on pending litigation. 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.

"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."

Several Republicans, including Abbott, say that Congress never intended to protect the rights of LGBTQ students with Title IX, which was created with women's rights in mind.

"Congress wrote Title IX to protect women. Biden, with no authority to do so, rewrote Title IX to protect men who identify as women," Abbott wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter, on Monday, sharing the letter to Biden. "This tramples Texas laws that prohibit men in women's sports. I am instructing the Texas Education Agency to ignore Biden's illegal dictate."

In his letter to the president, the Republican governor said he instructed the Texas Education Agency to ignore the new rules. "Your rewrite of Title IX not only exceeds your constitutional authority, but it also tramples laws that I signed to protect the integrity of women's sports by prohibiting men from competing against female athletes. Texas will fight to protect those laws and to deny your abuse of authority."

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, also a Republican, sued the Biden administration on Monday to block the implementation of Title IX new rules, saying these are in "compliance with radical gender ideology."

In a statement, he wrote: "This attempt to subvert federal law is plainly illegal, undemocratic, and divorced from reality. Texas will always take the lead to oppose Biden's extremist, destructive policies that put women at risk."

Other Republican attorneys general in GOP-led states, including Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana and Idaho filed separate lawsuits against the new regulations on Monday.

Update 4/30/2024, 9:50 a.m. ET: This article was updated to add comment from a Department of Education spokesperson.

Update 5/1/2024, 6:36 a.m. ET: This article was updated to add comment from a spokesperson for Gov. Abbott.