Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders called the Title IX expansion ‘plainly ridiculous.’
Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders issued an executive order on Thursday directing state schools to defy the Biden administration’s expansion of Title IX protections to include students identifying as transgender.
The Republican governor’s order, signed on Thursday, asserts the state’s commitment to preserving the traditional understanding of sex as an “immutable characteristic of the human body” firmly “rooted in biology and the created order.”
“The government should celebrate, not erase, sex differences by providing proper protections for them,” the order reads. It also states that the Biden administration “has rejected reality and chosen to appease their left-wing base over students’ safety and best interests.”
The order comes in response to the Biden administration’s recent redefinition of “sex” under Title IX to include “gender identity,” a move viewed by Ms. Sanders as a departure from the law’s original intent.
“The Biden administration is attempting to unilaterally rewrite federal law to advance its radical gender ideology against women and girls,” reads the order by Ms. Sanders, who once served as press secretary during the Trump administration.
Ms. Sanders said in her order that the new rule’s expanded definition of sex to include sexual orientation and