Attorney General Marshall and State Rep. DuBose Condemn Biden’s Title IX Changes

BIRMINGHAM — Attorney General Steve Marshall joined state Rep. Susan DuBose (R-Hoover) and Matt Sharp of Alliance Defending Freedom at a town hall in Birmingham to discuss legislative and judicial efforts to oppose the Biden administration’s proposed changes to Title IX.

Monday’s speech was the first of several planned events across the state organized by Moms for Liberty-Alabama and LOCAL Alabama, two groups sounding the alarm about the negative impact of the new regulations on women-only spaces.

In April, the U.S. Department of Education announced an update to Title IX, the broad name given to the civil rights law that prohibits discrimination in education based on sex. The changes, set to go into effect in August, add gender identity and sexual orientation to the list of groups protected by the federal government.

Opponents say it would eliminate the distinction between men’s and women’s sports and eliminate women-only spaces like locker rooms and bathrooms. The rule would also add refusing to use a person’s preferred name and pronouns to the definition of sexual harassment.

Monday’s meeting was held at the North Shelby Library and was attended by about 100 people. While most seemed to support the speakers, some wore transgender-supporting clothing and spent the evening making disturbing outbursts and uninvited comments.

First to take the mic was DuBose, who has made protecting women-only spaces a priority since being elected to the Alabama House of Representatives in 2022. DuBose already introduced legislation in 2023 that would ban college athletes from competing on opposite-sex sports teams. This year, she almost passed legislation to codify the definition of male and female in Alabama law, but it failed because of a gambling impasse in the Legislature. DuBose pledged to push for the same bill in the 2025 session and similar bills on the same subject during her speech.

“Can you believe it now? It’s actually an act of courage to say that gender is fixed and that there are only two genders, male and female, that gender identity is not the same as sex, that there is a difference between male and female and that it is fixed at birth and created by God,” DuBose said.

She continued: “We’ve had over 50 years of progress on Title IX, which the Biden administration wants to eliminate by redefining sex to include gender identity. By claiming that Title IX prohibits discrimination based on gender identity, the Biden administration’s rule will attempt to force schools to allow men who identify as women to accept scholarships for women and enter women’s private spaces, including sports teams, locker rooms, and single-sex dorms.”

Marshall took to the podium to discuss the state’s ongoing lawsuit challenging the proposed rule against the Biden administration, citing data showing that more than 60% of Americans oppose the change. Marshall and 25 other state attorneys general and private parties are trying to obtain a preliminary injunction before the rule goes into effect on Aug. 1.

RELATED: Attorney General Marshall Leads Lawsuit Against Biden’s Title IX Changes — ‘I Expect It to Be Repealed Quickly’

Title IX’s language explicitly prohibits institutions from denying any educational opportunity based on sex, or risk federal funding. In its lawsuit, Alabama accused the Biden administration of trying to sneak definitions into the Title IX code that didn’t exist at the time of its creation. Marshall said the concept of gender identity didn’t enter the Title IX discussion until the Education Department under former President Barack Obama tried to apply it as such in 2014 and 2010, which were repealed.

“Everybody, when the law was passed in 1972, nobody questioned the fact that ‘sex’ meant biological sex, the sex God created you to be; that wasn’t even a consideration,” Marshall continued. “Nobody questioned which bathroom you were supposed to go to; that was defined by your biological sex. So when we talk about the issue that we’re dealing with now, let’s be clear: neither Republicans nor Democrats in 1972 had any doubts about what ‘sex’ meant, but it turns out we have to revisit it now. That wasn’t an issue for almost 40 years when Title IX was introduced, and it’s only under Obama that we suddenly see a shift in perspective.”

“We can’t lose sight of the fact that the way you change the law is by going to Congress and telling them to pass an amendment to the bill so they can do what the proponent wants to do. Time and time again, those who advocate for including gender identity in the definition of sex have come back to Congress. And do you know what the result was? They failed. Which not only sends a clear message that Congress didn’t think it was appropriate, but it also shows that they didn’t think that the original definition of sex, when it was adopted in 1972, included that concept,” Marshall continued.

Marshall argued that the proposed Title IX changes would render Alabama’s existing law protecting women-only spaces null and void, thwarting the will of the state’s duly elected legislature. It would also run afoul of Congress, which has already rejected Biden’s proposal at the federal level.

Both Marshall and DuBose criticized the state’s acceptance of federal funds, which is the only weapon the federal government has to enforce decrees not approved by Congress.

“That’s the problem with federal funding, right? It’s like you sold your soul to the devil, because now they’re trying to control you,” DuBose said. “And those federal dollars, all of you, are huge.”

“This is an example of how the federal government can control federal activity with purse strings,” Marshall said. “Because the only means by which these changes can occur is through federal funding. Without that, it’s clear that the federal government has no authority to dictate these policies at the state level.”

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