Arkansas’s Republican Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders announced on Thursday that Arkansas would not comply with Joe Biden’s changes to Title IX affecting transgender students.
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Arkansas joins Texas, Oklahoma, and Florida as Republican-led states that will defy the new rules, setting up a classic constitutional crisis.
“My message to Joe Biden and the federal government is we will not comply,” Sanders said Thursday. She stood next to former All-American swimming champion Riley Gaines, who has distinguished herself in the fight to protect women’s rights.
🚨 BREAKING: Arkansas Gov. @SarahHuckabee becomes the FIRST female governor to stand against Biden’s illegal #TitleIX rewrite & issue a pro-woman executive order that defines crucial sex-based terms like ‘female’ & ‘woman.’ Learn more ⤵️ @Riley_Gaines_ https://t.co/UKc2CGRJq2 pic.twitter.com/3ZaJ02GZqw
— Independent Women’s Voice (@IWV) May 2, 2024
Title IX has been a godsend for women in sports, forcing schools to treat male and female athletes and the programs they compete in equally.
But the left has used Title IX to shoehorn their pet social engineering schemes into the mainstream. The new rules would eliminate restrictions on the use of bathrooms by trans students. It would also make a host of changes to how sexual harassment cases are handled on campus, removing the requirement for live hearings and cross-examination.
“If President Biden threatens our state with loss of educational funding because we refuse to go along with his election-year pandering, Arkansas will take the federal government to court,” Sanders said. “That’s because this issue goes far beyond a single locker room or missed scholarship.”
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The new changes to the federal rule includes reversing protections for someone accused of sexual misconduct that was created under former Education Secretary Betsy DeVos. The new regulations also provides a larger definition of sexual harassment that is “so severe or pervasive that it limits or denies a person’s ability” to receive an education.
While live hearings were a key rules under DeVos, those hearings will now be optional and provide remote attendance and schools can prohibit “unclear or harassing” questions. In lieu of live hearings, school officials can interview people separately.
Education Secretary Miguel Cardona said the change to Title IX helps ensure “everyone can access schools that are safe, welcoming and that respect their rights.”
While the Biden administration initially looked at adding a policy that would bar schools from transgender athlete bans, the new rule changes to Title IX do not mention transgender athletes.
For obvious reasons, the changes to Title IX that will affect athletes will not be published until after the election.
The new rules ban discrimination based on “sex stereotypes, sexual orientation, gender identity, and sex characteristics.” Sanders noted that the new rule is a “reinterpretation” of the original 1972 regulations and “should scare every woman and man in America.”
For men on campus, it’s a return to the star chamber proceedings on sexual harassment charges where the accused will be unable to face his accuser or see the evidence against him.
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Sanders also claimed that “if the weak men running the White House had half the courage of Riley, our country would be in a much better place.”
During the press conference, Gaines alleged again that Lia Thomas, the transgender swimmer that tied fifth with Gaines in 2022, changed in the same locker room with them with no prior warning. Gaines also repeated her claim that Thomas was allowed to stand on the fifth place podium while she was relegated to the sixth place spot.
The ACLU of Arkansas pointed out the shortcomings in Sanders’ policies in their usual gentle way.
“We call on Gov. Sanders to cease these draconian measures and redirect her focus towards improving the lives of Arkansans,” the group said on social media. “True leaders foster unity and address the actual needs of people, not divide, bully, and exclude.”
Tell that to Biden. He’s the one doing the dividing.