Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders issued an executive order on Thursday directing state schools to defy the Biden administration’s expansion of Title IX protections to include students identifying as transgender.
The Republican governor’s order, signed on Thursday, asserts the state’s commitment to preserving the traditional understanding of sex as an “immutable characteristic of the human body” firmly “rooted in biology and the created order.”
The order comes in response to the Biden administration’s recent redefinition of “sex” under Title IX to include “gender identity,” a move viewed by Ms. Sanders as a departure from the law’s original intent.
“The Biden administration is attempting to unilaterally rewrite federal law to advance its radical gender ideology against women and girls,” reads the order by Ms. Sanders, who once served as press secretary during the Trump administration.
Ms. Sanders said in her order that the new rule’s expanded definition of sex to include sexual orientation and gender identity was “plainly ridiculous.” She said it would “lead to males unfairly competing in women’s sports; receiving access to women’s and girls’ locker rooms, bathrooms, and private spaces; and competing for women’s scholarships.”
The reinterpretation of Title IX by the Biden administration, outlined in a document spanning nearly 460,000 words, has also drawn criticism from a slate of GOP attorneys general, who have filed lawsuits challenging it.
Ms. Sanders notes in her order that, compared to the lengthy re-write, the original Title IX “contained a succinct 37 words” when it was signed into law in 1972.
