Oklahoma State Superintendent Ryan Walters told Newsmax on Thursday that he has directed all 542 of the state's school districts and charter schools not to comply with the Biden administration's rewrite of Title IX, the 1972 law prohibiting sex discrimination in educational programs that get federal funding.
Last month, the Biden administration rewrote Title IX, broadening the scope of the law to prohibit discrimination and harassment based on sexual orientation and gender identity and effectively cementing protection for LGBTQ students under federal law.
"I think it's so essential that states stand up right now to the federal government and say, frankly, number one, there shouldn't be a federal Department of Education — it should not exist," Walters said during an appearance on "National Report."
"Number two, we are not going to comply with illegal rules. The Biden administration, they woke up one morning and decided they don't know what a boy and a girl is, so they're going to drastically change and say if schools don't adopt this, number one, the funding could be taken, but also I want to talk about the lawsuit aspect of it as well. If you don't use the preferred pronoun of a transgender child now, you will be out of compliance with federal regulation. Think about the absurdity of that."
"So, we wanted to tell our districts, very clearly, in the state of Oklahoma we will not comply," he continued. "In the state of Oklahoma, boys will play boys sports, girls will play girls sports. No boys in the girls' restrooms, period. We are not playing this woke gender theory game from the Biden administration. We are not going to allow girls sports to be destroyed and our girls to be put in danger in the state of Oklahoma."
Walters said the federal Department of Education "is bringing down a heavy hand to threaten states to comply" and said that the agency "brought us Common Core, DEI [diversity, equity and inclusion], now radical gender theory with the threat of jerking your federal funding back and the threat of lawsuits against the states."
When asked how difficult it was to make the decision not to comply with the Biden administration's rewrite of Title IX, Walters said, "Frankly, it was easy."
"I mean, I look at it and I say, 'listen, we're not taking 30 pieces of silver from the federal government and selling our kids away to them,' " he said. "We're not going to allow Joe Biden to come into our schools and endanger our young girls. Oklahomans are clear on this; frankly, I think Americans are clear on this. This is a common sense issue, but the Biden administration is so radicalized that they are driving this into our schools."
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