April 8, 2022

Montana AG Leads Coalition Objecting to Proposed Title IX Rulemaking

Lori Kalani, Bernard Nash

Cozen O'Connor

+ Follow Contact

Facebook

Send

Embed

Cozen O'Connor

Montana AG Austin Knudsen, together with AGs from 14 states, sent a letter to Catherine Lhamon, Assistant Secretary of the Office for Civil Rights of the US Department of Education, urging the Department to halt efforts to propose new regulations implementing Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, to cover discrimination based on gender identity.
In the letter, the AGs assert that the Department should not extend the scope of Title IX to cover discrimination on the basis of gender identity, claiming that doing so would exceed the Department’s rulemaking authority. The letter also argues that the definition of the term “sex” at the time of Title IX’s enactment was intended to convey “biological distinctions between male and female” and that altering the definition to include gender identity would both damage women’s sports and intrude into parental decision-making.
The AGs further call on Assistant Secretary Lhamon to recuse herself from taking part in any rulemaking on Title IX due to her involvement in crafting previous rules when she served as Assistant Secretary of the OCR under the Obama Administration, which the AGs claim created a “regulatory mess” in how schools handle sexual harassment and assault claims.

Send Print Report

DISCLAIMER: Because of the generality of this update, the information provided herein may not be applicable in all situations and should not be acted upon without specific legal advice based on particular situations.