A new court filing in a lawsuit against the Biden administration for its overhaul of Title IX claims that a transgender track-and-field athlete at a West Virginia middle school displaced girls in competition over 700 times in three seasons.
On Thursday, the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) a nonprofit civil rights firm, filed a motion asking the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals to stop the Biden administration’s new Title IX rules from going into effect on Aug. 1, and to allow state laws that ban transgender athletes from playing on girls’ sports teams to stay in effect.
The rules, issued by Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona last month, say that sex discrimination includes discrimination based on gender identity as well as sexual orientation. The administration has claimed that the change wouldn’t affect sports, but attorneys for ADF say that’s not true.
“The Biden administration’s radical redefinition of sex will upend the equal opportunities that women and girls have enjoyed for 50 years under Title IX and will threaten their safety and privacy at every level,” ADF senior counsel Rachel Rouleau said in a statement.
Demonstrators cheer during the speaking program at the “Our Bodies, Our Sports” rally for the 50th anniversary of Title IX at Freedom Plaza on June 23, 2022, in Washington, D.C. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
“While the administration claims this change won’t affect sports, it has already made its position clear that men who identify as women should compete in women’s sports under Title IX,” Rouleau said.
The Biden administration has supported the efforts of one student, who identifies as transgender, to compete against ADF’s client and other girls in women’s sports in West Virginia, ADF says.
After a federal court ruled against ADF and allowed the student to compete on the girls’ team, that athlete finished ahead of girls more than 700 times in cross-country and track-and-field events, ADF claims.
“Our client has also lost her right to use the women’s locker room free from harassment and without a male present. This egregious example is just one of many ongoing difficulties girls are facing with this illegal rewrite of federal law and vast executive authority overreach,” Rouleau said.
ADF’s motion was filed as part of an ongoing lawsuit launched by Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti and over 20 other states against the administration’s new rules.
“Fifty years ago, Congress revolutionized our educational system. In 1970, nearly 34% of working women lacked high-school diplomas. In 2016, it was 6%. In 1972, 7% of high-school varsity athletes were women. In 2018, it was 43%. The change occurred because the people’s representatives balanced various interests and produced legislation centered on 37 words in [Title IX Of The Education Amendments Of 1972]: no person shall be excluded from, denied benefits of, or subjected to discrimination in educational programs on the basis of sex,'” ADF’s motion states.
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Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona (Tierney L. Cross/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
“A different sort of revolution took place a few weeks ago. On April 29, unelected Department of Education officials published Title IX rules that add the concept of gender identity – ‘an individual’s sense of their gender.’ The new rules sometimes even prioritize this subjective concept over someone’s objective sex, requiring schools to allow some men to use women’s restrooms, to change in women’s locker rooms, to shower in women’s showers, and to compete in women’s sports,” the motion states.
“The result is that Title IX’s primary beneficiaries are denied the privacy, dignity, equality, and fairness needed to benefit from our educational system,” it says.
Three former Connecticut high school track athletes, from left, Chelsea Mitchell, Selina Soule and Alanna Smith, listen during an “Our Bodies, Our Sports” rally for the 50th anniversary of Title IX at Freedom Plaza on June 23, 2022, in Washington, D.C. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
“None of this is justified – or justifiable,” it states.
The Department of Education previously told Fox News Digital in a statement that it “does not comment on pending litigation.”
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“The Department crafted the final Title IX regulations following a rigorous process to give complete effect to the Title IX statutory guarantee that no person experiences sex discrimination in federally-funded education,” the statement reads.
Fox News Digital’s Joshua Q. Nelson contributed to this report.