WASHINGTON – Today, U.S. Senators Bill Cassidy, M.D. (R-LA), ranking member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee, Tommy Tuberville (R-AL), and 20 Republican colleagues blasted President Biden’s new Title IX proposed rule that forces schools to allow biological males to compete in women’s sports or risk losing federal funds. The proposed rule would revise students’ Title IX discrimination protections in athletics to include gender identity. It would also allow the federal government to defund schools and overrule state policies aimed at supporting women in sports, after they are implemented, without providing clarity as to what kind of policy, if any, would comply.
“Congress made clear that its intention in passing Title IX was to prohibit discrimination against women participating fully in all aspects of athletic and academic opportunity at institutions that received federal financial assistance,” wrote the senators. “This proposed rule uses weakly-associated case law and polarizing social concepts to broaden the definition of women and girls to include individuals who identify as women, and in so doing, the intent of the law is destroyed and women are marginalized yet again.”
Cassidy and Tuberville were joined by U.S. Senators Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), Kevin Cramer (R-ND), Mike Braun (R-IN), Roger Marshall, M.D. (R-KS), Rick Scott (R-FL), Joni Ernst (R-IA), Mike Lee (R-UT), Pete Ricketts (R-NE), Mike Crapo (R-ID), Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-MS), Markwayne Mullin (R-OK), Jim Risch (R-ID), Steve Daines (R-MT), Roger Wicker (R-MS), John Barrasso (R-WY), Cynthia Lummis (R-WY), Tedd Budd (R-NC), Ron Johnson (R-WI), Katie Britt (R-AL), and Dan Sullivan (R-AK).
On Monday, Cassidy expressed serious concerns that Biden’s proposed rule ignores physiological differences between men and women and will undo generations of progress for women’s and girls’ participation in school sports.
Read the full letter here.
###