Gov. Abbott tells Texas universities to ignore Biden's Title IX revisions

After telling the Texas Education Agency last month to ignore President Joe Biden's recent revision of Title IX, which now includes safeguards for LGBTQ+ students, Republican Gov. Greg Abbott extended that directive Wednesday to the state's universities.

According to a statement from the governor's office, Abbott sent a letter to the state's public university systems and community colleges "directing them to not comply with President Joe Biden's recent revision of Title IX and to refrain from implementing any new system-wide policy related to this revision."

"As I have already made clear, Texas will not comply with President Joe Biden's rewrite of Title IX that contradicts the original purpose and spirit of the law to support the advancement of women," reads the letter. "I signed laws to ensure the safety of our students on campus and provide a process for adjudicating reports of sexual harassment and sexual assault with adequate due process for all parties involved, as well as laws to protect the integrity of women's sports by prohibiting men from competing against female athletes​—​and ​I will not let President Biden erase the advancements Texas has made."

Title IX is a civil rights law enacted in 1972 that prohibits sex-based discrimination in schools or education programs that receive federal funding. Among the Title IX changes announced in April are new rules to clarify that Title IX also forbids discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity. LGBTQ+ students who face discrimination will be entitled to a response from their school under Title IX, and those failed by their schools can seek recourse from the federal government.

Abbott previously tweeted on X that he complained in a letter to the president that the recent revision of Title IX "forces schools to treat biological men as women." In his letter, Abbott said he instructed the TEA to ignore the president's "illegal dictate" and that "Texas will not adhere to the new rules."

"Title IX was written by Congress to support the advancement of women academically and athletically," the governor wrote in his letter last month to the president. "The law was based on the fundamental premise that there are only two sexes—male and female. You have rewritten Title IX to force schools to treat boys as if they are girls and to accept every student’s self-declared gender identity. This ham-handed effort to impose a leftist belief onto Title IX exceeds your authority as President. I am instructing the Texas Education Agency to ignore your illegal dictate."

Absent from Biden’s policy, however, was any mention of transgender athletes. Still, the governor said the revision of Title IX exceeded Biden's constitutional authority and "it also tramples laws that I signed to protect the integrity of women’s sports by prohibiting men from competing against female athletes."

The governor's office said he signed the Save Women’s Sports Act into law in 2023 "to protect the integrity of fair competition and women’s sports by prohibiting biological men from competing against female athletes at Texas colleges and universities." In 2021, the governor's office said he signed a similar law "to protect girls’ sports in Texas public schools."

Abbott's office said he sent Wednesday's letter to the Texas A&M University System, Texas Southern University, Texas State University System, Texas Tech University System, Texas Women's University System, University of Houston System, University of North Texas System, and the University of Texas System, as well as Texas' community colleges. The letter can be read here.

The governor's directive is not the state's only action. The Office of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said last month he was suing the Biden Administration, accusing it of "unlawfully using Title IX to mandate radical gender ideology, violating [the] constitution and putting women at risk." The state's attorney general said the modified rule violates existing federal law, ignores the Constitution, and denies women the protections it was intended to provide.

Attorneys general from 22 states now contend that the Education Department has exceeded its authority in changing the regulation and have filed lawsuits around the Title IX revisions.