More than half of the state attorneys general in the country, including Alaska Attorney General Treg Taylor, have asked the Biden Administration to reverse new federal rules that require school districts to allow boys to compete on girls athletic competitions, use their locker rooms and gender-specific bathrooms or lose federal food dollars.
Last month the Department of Agriculture said it will include gender identity and sexual orientation on its list of protections under Title IX, the federal law that prohibits discrimination in schools based on gender.
Twenty-six out of the 27 Republican attorneys general signed the letter saying that “vastly expanding the concept of ‘discrimination on the basis of sex’ to include gender identity and sexual orientation, the Guidance does much more than offer direction. It imposes new—and unlawful—regulatory measures on state agencies and operators receiving federal financial assistance from the USDA. And the inevitable result is regulatory chaos that would threaten the effective provision of essential nutritional services to some of our most vulnerable citizens.”
The attorneys said in that the change in the interpretation is a wholesale change in the law, which is outside the legal authority of the department.
“We have long had a productive relationship with the federal government, managing various food and nutrition programs guided by the principles of cooperative federalism. We would like to continue this cooperative relationship. But the Guidance flouts the rule of law, relies on patently incorrect legal analysis that is currently under scrutiny in the federal courts, and was issued without giving the States the requisite opportunity to be heard. While we are always open to working with your Administration to resolve these matters, under the present circumstances we are constrained to ask that you direct Secretary Vilsack and the Department of Agriculture to rescind this Guidance,” the attorneys general wrote.
