Arkansas, five other states file suit to stop Title IX changes for transgender student-athletes

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (KAIT/KARK) - Arkansas is suing the federal government following proposed changes to open protections for transgender student-athletes.

It was announced in a conference Tuesday morning that Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin joined Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey in leading a suit to stop the Biden Administration’s changes to Title IX from going into effect, our content partner KARK reported.

Title IX was signed into law in 1972 to help prevent discrimination and promote gender equality and has been used to support equality in women’s athletics, along with men’s sports.

“Congress enacted Title IX to protect and promote opportunities for women and girls in education and sports. For the last half-century, that’s what it has done,” Griffin said in a release. “But President Biden and his Department of Education now want to radically reinterpret Title IX and recast it as a rule about gender identity.”

Attorney General Bailey and Jonesboro student-athlete Amila Ford spoke in Tuesday’s conference saying that the proposed change would be an attack on women’s equal rights.

Ford, who opposes the inclusion of transgender females in women’s sprots said the changes, if passed, would allow “boys to access school locker rooms and sports teams,” KARK reported. “This is not okay,” she said.

Governor Sanders said the Title IX changes would attempt to “erase women completely.”

“It’s a document that should scare every woman and every man in America,” Sanders said. “My message to Joe Biden and the federal government means we will not comply.”

This comes after Governor Sanders signed an executive order opposing Biden’s Title IX changes.

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