WASHINGTON / July 15, 2024 – Over 50 years ago, Marxist Shalamith Firestone laid out her grand vision for gender equality: “genital differences between human beings would no longer matter culturally…The tyranny of the biological family would be broken.” (1) As far-fetched as her proposal might sound, activists around the world began to take up the challenge, concocting their theory of “transgenderism.”
Accordingly on his first day in office, President Biden issued an Executive Order that decreed, “All persons should receive equal treatment under the law, no matter their gender identity or sexual orientation.” (2) On April 19 of this year, the Biden Department of Education issued its final Title IX rule that expanded the meaning of sex to include “gender identity.” (3)
Response to the new policy was resoundingly negative. Numerous governors and state superintendents of education instructed their schools to ignore the rule (4). One editorial ridiculed the policy as a “repulsive attempt to erase biological truth.” (5)
Literally within days, state Attorneys General and others began to file nine lawsuits seeking to overturn the policy (6). To date, five decisions have been handed down. Remarkably, every one of decisions imposed a temporary injunction for their respective states on the “arbitrary and capricious” Title IX rule:
· June 13: Judge Terry Doughty for the states of Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana, and Idaho (7).
· June 17: Judge Danny Reeves for Tennessee, Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana, Virginia, and West Virginia (8).
· July 2: Judge John Broomes for Kansas, Alabama, Utah, and Wyoming, plus all schools attended by the children of Moms for Liberty and by members of the Young America’s Foundation (9).
· July 11: Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk for the state of Texas. In addition, the judge noted he is considering extending his injunction to all 50 states in the nation (10).
· July 11: Judge Reed O’Connor for the Carroll Independent School District in Texas (11).
In parallel fashion, the Department of Health and Human Services issued a separate regulation in May requiring states to pay for so-called “gender affirming” treatments (12). This rule, which also relies on a bloated definition of sex to include gender identity, was met with several lawsuits as well.
On July 3, two federal judges issued injunctions against the DHHS rule. The first applied to Texas and Montana (13). More devastating to the Washington bureaucrats, the second decision blocked the DHHS rule throughout the entire nation (14).
Topping off this remarkable string of decisions, on June 28 the United States Supreme Court issued a ruling that overturned the long-standing Chevron doctrine (15). In the past, the Chevron doctrine provided a legal fig leaf to the Department of Education and other federal agencies seeking to escape accountability and issue intrusive regulations.
Seldom in American jurisprudence have judges issued a series of decisions within a period of just four weeks, all with the intended effect of blocking the implementation of ill-conceived and unlawful federal regulations.
As these lawsuits continue to be litigated, the 229 organizational members of the Title IX Network will continue to monitor the situation and take appropriate action (16). Interested organizations that wish to join the Title IX Network should contact Robert Thompson at [email protected]
Reprinted with permission from SAVE Services.
Fight On!!