The Louisiana state superintendent of education sent a letter to school leaders on Monday instructing them to ignore the Biden administration's new final rules using Title IX as protections for transgender students at federally funded schools.
Dr. Cade Brumley advised the new rules announced by the U.S. Department of Education last week are "in direct contradiction" with existing state and federal law, according to The Hill and NOLA.com, citing a copy of the letter.
The Department of Education on Friday expanded the definition of sex to include transgender with its release of updated Title IX rules.
The new rules take effect Aug. 1, but not in Louisiana. Not without a court battle anyway.
In his letter, Brumley instructed school leaders they "should not alter policies or procedures at this time," according to the reports. The Biden administration rules run afoul to Louisiana's 2022 state law banning transgender girls — biological males — from playing on girls teams.
"The Title IX rule changes recklessly endanger students and seek to dismantle equal opportunities for females," Brumley wrote in the letter.
The DOE rules also require schools allow transgender students to use restrooms and locker rooms that they identify with and require teaches to call students by their preferred name and pronouns. Both of those also run afoul to Louisiana state law.
Brumley told The Hill he fully expects the Biden administration to next block states from enforcing trans bans, allowing them to compete with their gender identity instead of their biology. The DOE proposed that rule separately this month.
"You can rest assured that they have the full intent of this applying completely to athletics moving forward," Brumley told The Hill.
Republican lawmakers on Capitol Hill have the DOE rules in their crosshairs, too.
"The Department of Education has placed Title IX, and the decades of advancement and protections for women and girls that it has yielded, squarely on the chopping block," said Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-N.C, chairwoman of the House Education and Workforce Committee.
"This final rule dumps kerosene on the already raging fire that is Democrats' contemptuous culture war that aims to radically redefine sex and gender."