Nebraska became the latest state to defy new federal education rules barring discrimination against transgender students, with Republican Gov. Jim Pillen saying it was his "duty" to oppose President Joe Biden's "radical gender ideology."
In a statement Friday, Pillen called the pending revisions to Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 an "affront to the common sense idea that men do not belong in women's-only spaces," and a "direct attack" on the Women's Bill of Rights he signed last year, the Nebraska Examiner reported.
"Protecting our kids and women's athletics is my duty," Pillen said. "The president's new rules threaten the safety of women and their right to participate in women's sports. Nebraska will not comply."
Pillen also said the state "must fight against radical gender ideology and vigorously protect the rights of Nebraska women and girls."
The move came one day after after Republican Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders announced an executive order directing schools in the state to continue current state enforcing laws about which bathrooms and pronouns students can use.
Those laws could be invalidated by regulations on how to apply the new Title IX rules, according to the Associated Press.
"My message to Joe Biden and the federal government is we will not comply," Sanders said during a Thursday news conference at the state Capitol in Little Rock.
Officials in at least five other GOP-led states — Florida, Louisiana, Montana, South Carolina and Oklahoma — have also directed districts to defy the new Title IX rules, Education Week reported late last month.
Nine states, including Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi and Idaho, filed lawsuits to challenge the rules, the Washington Examiner reported Tuesday.
Title IX was originally enacted to address women's rights and applies to all schools that receive federal funding.
The new rules, which were released on April 19 and go into effect on Aug. 1, expand Title IX to cover discrimination based on "sex stereotypes, sexual orientation, gender identity, and sex characteristics," according to the U.S. Education Department.
The department is still reviewing more than 150,000 public comments it received after proposing new Title IX rules for student athletics in April 2023, according to a statement issued last month.
