Gov. Abbott directs Texas colleges, universities to ignore Title IX changes

AUSTIN (KXAN) — Texas Gov. Greg Abbott sent a letter Wednesday to the state’s higher education leaders instructing them to ignore revisions to a federal anti-discrimination law that would extend protections to LGBTQ+ students.

The governor’s letter about Title IX went to the chairmen and regents at Texas A&M University, Texas Southern University, Texas State University, Texas Tech University, Texas Women’s University, University of Houston, University of North Texas and University of Texas as well as Texas’ community colleges. These are all positions appointed by Abbott and approved by the Texas Senate.

“The law passed by Congress was based on the fundamental premise that there are only two sexes — male and female,” Abbott wrote. “President Biden wants to force every school across the country to treat boys and men as if they were girls and women and to accept every student’s self-declared gender identity, exceeding his authority as President in order to impose a leftist belief on the next generation.”

The U.S. Department of Education announced rule changes last month to Title IX, the federal policy prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sex in education programs or activities that get federal funds. The final rule expands the definition of sex discrimination to include gender identity and sexual orientation. Some LGBTQ+ advocates said this could make some Republican-backed laws unenforceable, while GOP leaders slammed it as an attack on established protections for cisgender women and girls.

The governor previously sent a letter to the commissioner of the Texas Education Agency directing him to also ignore this federal law. On the same day, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton also announced he filed a lawsuit in an Amarillo federal court aimed at blocking the changes from taking effect in August.

At least six states led by Republicans filed litigation challenging the Biden administration on Title IX.

Abbott claimed in his latest letter that these efforts undermine Texas law banning transgender women from competing on female sports teams both at the high school and collegiate level. However, the Title IX rule changes do not apply to athletics.

One legal expert previously told KXAN that the rule changes would most likely block some GOP-backed laws instead, like bathroom restrictions. At least four school districts in the Dallas area now have policies that require students to only use restrooms that align with their gender assigned at birth. Under this rule, federal funds could be withheld from those schools.

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