It turns out that thousands of schools have at least one student with a parent who belongs to Moms for Liberty.
More than 2,000 schools in 45 states will be exempt from the Biden administration’s final rule adding “gender identity” to Title IX, based on a judge’s order blocking the regulations from taking effect at any school with a Moms for Liberty parent.
Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach submitted to the U.S. District Court for Kansas on Friday an “initial list of the K-12 schools attended by the children of its members,” a 63-page document listing K-12 schools with the Moms for Liberty connection.
U.S. District Judge John Broomes granted a temporary injunction on July 2 to four states challenging the Title IX rewrite — Kansas, Alaska, Utah and Wyoming — as well as schools with a Moms for Liberty parent, or at least one student who belongs to Young America’s Foundation or Female Athletes United.
Two weeks ago, the plaintiffs turned in a list of more than 670 colleges, universities and other higher-education institutions in 50 states with a Young America’s Foundation or Female Athletes United member, meaning that the entire institution falls under the injunction.
“The list includes 364 colleges and universities in 26 states that aren’t currently suing the Biden administration over the regulations,” said Inside Higher Ed, which provided a searchable format for the colleges covered by the court injunction.
The court order creates an administrative headache for the Department of Education as it seeks to enforce the rule in a patchwork of schools, in some cases holding schools within the same district to different Title IX standards.
The department urged the court earlier this month to limit the scope of the injunction to members of the organization as of the court filing or injunction, but Judge Broomes refused, calling it “a problem of DoE’s own making.”
“As the court suggested in its prior order, Congress has given DoE at least one tool to mitigate the hardships that its new rule imposes on those who are subject to it while the judicial review process plays out in courts across the country,” the judge said in his July 19 order. “Congress gave DoE the authority to postpone the effective date of the Final Rule pending judicial review. Maybe DoE should use that authority.”
What’s more, Judge Broomes extended the deadline to submit the list of schools from July 15 to July 26. He also said that more schools could be added as parents join the groups.
“This court’s ruling did not state that it was limited to individuals who were members of a Plaintiff Organization on a certain date,” said Judge Broomes, a Trump appointee. “Individuals are free to join or leave an organization whenever they so choose.”
𝐇𝐮𝐠𝐞 𝐰𝐢𝐧 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐌𝐨𝐦𝐬 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐋𝐢𝐛𝐞𝐫𝐭𝐲!
— Moms for Liberty (@Moms4Liberty) July 23, 2024
Protect your child from Biden’s Title IX mandates on gender ideology.
Sign up today to opt-in your child’s school to a list where the DOE cannot implement their plans! https://t.co/b7yNZ1lGmQ
Moms for Liberty said its membership list “will be periodically updated as more and more members choose to add their child’s school to the list and ensure they will be safe from Title IX overreach.”
The parental rights group said it continues to enroll members on its website with an opt-in feature for parents who seek “to protect their children’s schools from the implementation of the Biden Administration’s Title IX redo for gender ideology in K-12 education.”
Membership in Moms for Liberty is free.
The list of schools submitted to the court includes nearly 60 in Virginia, including schools in the Culpeper, Fairfax, Fauquier and Prince William counties; and 37 schools in Maryland, including those in the counties of Anne Arundel, Frederick, Howard and Montgomery.
No public schools in the District of Columbia were listed.
Federal judges have blocked the Title IX redo from taking effect in 21 states pending the outcome of the lawsuits, as well as at least two school districts. The rule is scheduled to take effect Aug. 1.
The administration has defended its final rule, which extends Title IX’s protections against sex-based discrimination in education to biological males who identify as female.
“Title IX guarantees that no person experience sex discrimination in a federally-funded educational environment,” a DOE spokesperson said. “The department crafted the final Title IX regulations following a rigorous process to realize the Title IX statutory guarantee. The department stands by the final Title IX regulations released in April 2024, and we will continue to fight for every student.”
Correction: An earlier version of this story misspelled Culpeper County in Virginia.
• Valerie Richardson can be reached at vrichardson@washingtontimes.com.
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