By Alliance Defending Freedom
ALEXANDRIA, La. (ADF) – On behalf of the Rapides Parish School Board, serving more than 20,000 students, Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys filed a federal lawsuit April 30 against the Biden administration for what they described as unlawfully rewriting Title IX.
Louisiana House Speaker Pro-Tempore Mike Johnson began preparations to file a lawsuit during the summer of 2023, when he heard of possible federal rule changes. In October, he began working with ADF to file the lawsuit as soon as the revisions were enacted.
“Our children are our most precious gift from God and our responsibility is to protect them,” Johnson, a member of First Baptist Church, Pineville, told the Baptist Message. “This rule change is a direct threat upon our youth and particularly our girls. It presents a danger and a threat to their rights under Title IX and an assault on our values and norms cannot stand.”
On April 19, the Biden administration announced it would redefine “sex” in Title IX rules to include “gender identity,” requiring schools to ignore the biological distinction between male and female in favor of “an individual’s sense of their gender.”
According to ADF, the Department of Education’s fundamental and radical rewriting of federal law forces schools across the country to embrace a controversial gender ideology that harms children—including the very children it claims to help. Schools will have to allow males who identify as female to enter girls’ private spaces like bathrooms, locker rooms, and showers; to participate in girls’ physical education classes; and—despite logically inconsistent disclaimers saying otherwise—to play on girls’ sports teams.
In the case, Rapides Parish School Board v. United States Department of Education, ADF attorneys explain that the rule will force schools—including those in Rapides Parish—to impose widespread harms on young people and deny free speech on campus. This is the first of multiple lawsuits ADF plans to file challenging the rule.
“The Biden administration’s radical redefinition of sex turns back the clock on equal opportunity for women, undermines fairness, and threatens every student’s safety and privacy,” said ADF Senior Counsel Natalie Thompson. “The administration continues to ignore biological reality, science, and common sense. The Rapides Parish School Board, and other schools and teachers across the country, are right to stand against the enforcement of this extreme gender ideology, which will have devastating consequences for students, teachers, administrators, and families.”
Located in central Louisiana, the Rapides Parish School Board’s 42 school campuses provide pre-K to 12th grade public education to more than 20,000 students. All of these will be impacted by the new Title IX rule.
The Biden administration attempted to dodge the issue of women’s sports by leaving in place a section of Title IX regulations allowing schools to maintain separate sports teams, ADF explained in a press release.
However, ADF attorneys said the administration has already made its stance clear on the issue of boys who identify as girls being allowed to compete in girls’ sports.
In another ADF case, B.P.J. v. West Virginia State Board of Education, the Department of Justice stated that, “A state law that limits or denies a particular class of people’s ability to participate in public, federally funded educational programs and activities solely because their gender identity does not match their sex assigned at birth violates both Title IX and the Equal Protection Clause.”
The Baptist Message contributed to this report.
