Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders (R-AR) said Thursday that Arkansas will not comply with new federal regulations that would ban discrimination of LGBT students under federal law.
The move comes as other Republican-lead states made similar defiant moves against the Biden administration. Sanders said Arkansas will continue to enforce bathroom restrictions, which could become invalid with the Biden administration’s new order.
“My message to Joe Biden and the federal government is we will not comply,” Sanders said Thursday. Riley Gaines, an outspoken former student-athlete against transgender women in sports, was at the signing.
According to the Associated Press, the legislation was created to clarify Title IX, a landmark law originally passed in 1972 to address women’s rights and applied to schools and colleges receiving federal money. It is commonly applied to women in sports.
While the 1972 law does not address the issue, the new rule does clarify that Title IX does in fact forbid discrimination based on one’s sexual orientation or gender identity.
The new rule is “crystal clear that everyone can access schools that are safe, welcoming and that respect their rights,” Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona said.
Sanders believes the Biden interpretation is unlawful, continuing to explain her reasoning for the executive order.
“Last month, President Biden released a ‘reinterpretation’ of Title IX that comes in at an insane 459,000 words. … It’s a document that should scare every woman and man in America,” Sanders said.
“If President Biden threatens our state with loss of educational funding because we refuse to go along with his election-year pandering, Arkansas will take the federal government to court. That’s because this issue goes far beyond a single locker room or missed scholarship,” she continued.
Texas and Oklahoma have enacted similar legislation, telling schools not to comply with the new federal law. Lawsuits have also been filed in Alabama, Louisiana, Kentucky Texas challenging the law.
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The American Civil Liberties Union of Arkansas opposed the governor’s order.
“This act is a stark defiance of laws to protect against discrimination and a clear, aggressive attack on the well-being and freedoms of LGBTQ people in our state,” Megan Bailey, spokeswoman for the ACLU of Arkansas, said in a statement.
