Iowa is joining 20 other states in a lawsuit over the Biden Administration’s move to expand Title IX protections for women to ban discrimination based on gender identity or sexual orientation.
Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird said the new rule violates the U.S. Constitution as well as a federal law that requires agencies to fully consider the costs of complying with new regulations.
“That’s something I get to do as attorney general is to enforce our laws and constitution on the federal government when it gets out of control,” Bird said this weekend at the Iowa GOP’s state convention as she discussed the lawsuits she’s joined to try to block Biden Administration actions.
The new restriction would apply to all schools — from preschool through college — and schools that fail to comply could lose federal funding. In a written statement, Bird said the mandate “tears down more than 50 years of landmark protections for girls and women who will now be forced to share private facilities with males.”
In a written statement, Governor Kim Reynolds said “there are important biological differences between males and females” and she asked the attorney general to join the lawsuit. The governor made an indirect reference to the rule during a speech at the Iowa Republican Party’s state convention.
“By God, we will protect girl’s sports. Bring it on, bring it on,” Reynolds said, to cheers. “Bring it on!”
Title IX is the landmark civil rights law passed in 1972 that prohibits discrimination in any school or education program that receives federal funding and it led to an expansion of girls’ and women’s sports across the country. The attorneys general from Missouri and Arkansas are leading the lawsuit to try to stop the Biden Administration’s changes in Title IX from going into effect August 1.
