Attorney General Ken Paxton Files for Stay and Injunction to Stop Biden Administration’s Assault on Women’s Rights and Title IX
May 14, 2024 | Austin, TX
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has filed an amended complaint along with a motion for a stay of agency action and a preliminary injunction in his lawsuit against the Biden Administration’s attempt to unlawfully remove protections for women in educational institutions under Title IX.
The amended complaint highlights the history of Title IX, demonstrating that the law’s “prohibition on sex-based discrimination was understood to mean biological sex, not gender identity.” The new rule from the U.S. Department of Education requires schools to allow men in female bathrooms and locker rooms, allows men on women’s sports teams, and requires schools to punish instances of referring to people by biologically accurate pronouns. Due to the clear illegality of the Biden Administration’s attempt to undermine protections for women, Attorney General Paxton is requesting a stay of the agency action and a preliminary injunction to prevent the new rule from taking effect while the lawsuit proceeds.
On April 29, Attorney General Paxton sued the U.S. Department of Education to stop new regulatory requirements under Title IX that would expand the definition of “sex” to include one’s self-professed “gender identity.” Title IX is a civil rights law granting protections to women by prohibiting discrimination on the basis of their sex in any educational program that receives federal money, including everything from K-12 schools to colleges and universities. The new rule contorts these protections for women by forcing schools to accommodate the wishes of men claiming to identify as women (or “transgender”) to enter female-only spaces and join female-only organizations. If schools refused, federal funding would be withheld.
“Texas is asking the court to put an immediate stop to Biden’s outrageous, unlawful assault on women’s rights,” said Attorney General Paxton. “Biden cannot violate the Constitution to subvert Title IX protections for women in his effort to accommodate the fringe demands of ‘transgender’ movement activists.”
America First Legal is serving as co-counsel. AFL President Stephen Miller said: “We are asking the federal district court to grant an immediate injunction to halt the implementation of Biden’s attack on girls and women. Biden’s new Title IX rule would force girls in every public school in America to share restrooms, locker rooms and private facilities with men. It would force onto millions of children the destructive and abusive ideology which holds drugs and mutilative surgery can reverse a child’s gender and make boys into girls and girls into boys. We are privileged to work in partnership with Texas and the indomitable Ken Paxton to seek the urgent termination of this lawless decree.”