NEBRASKA, July 28 - Media Contacts: 

Alex Reuss, 402-471-1970

Justin Pinkerman, 402-471-1967

Media Release:

Gov. Ricketts Blasts Biden Administration’s Attack on Title IX, Discrimination Against Women  

LINCOLN – Today, Governor Pete Ricketts joined 14 fellow Governors in writing a letter to President Joseph R. Biden, Jr. urging him to abandon the Administration’s proposal to radically reinterpret Title IX. 

Under President Biden’s leadership, the U.S. Department of Education (DOEd) and U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) have proposed an unscientific reinterpretation of “discrimination on the basis of sex” to include “gender identity and sexual orientation.”  The Governors sharply criticized the President for pursuing rule and policy changes that would discriminate against women and jeopardize their safety—in direct contradiction to the original intent of Title IX.

“Bad ideas have consequences.  Bad policies have victims,” said Gov. Ricketts.  “I am proud to join fellow Republican governors in support of women and children during the Biden Administration’s attack on Title IX.”

“By expanding Title IX to include gender identity and sexual orientation, your Administration puts girls and women of all ages at risk,” the Governors wrote in their letter to President Biden.  “The DOEd rule would force any institution that receives federal financial aid to allow biological males to access women’s and girls’ locker rooms, bathrooms, and dorms, depriving them of privacy and safety at school.  The rule ensures that a far-left ideology on gender will be taught in schools nationwide.  And finally...the policy changes your Administration has already put forward leave us with no doubt that the Department intends to eliminate fairness in girls’ sports, too.”

The Governors also criticized President Biden for threatening to withhold school lunch aid unless schools comply with the Biden Administration’s extreme gender ideology.  “To be clear, your Administration would take lunch money away from our kids and grandkids in pursuit of a radical agenda that has no basis in science and is not supported by the vast majority of the American people,” the Governors wrote. 

Additionally, 22 state Attorneys General—including Nebraska AG Doug Peterson—filed a lawsuit yesterday against the Biden Administration to “challenge the unlawful and unnecessary new obligations and liabilities” the USDA has attempted to impose through its “flawed understanding” of Title IX.

Read the full letter from the Governors to President Biden by clicking here.