From Arizona to Virginia, 22 states have joined a lawsuit led led by Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita and Tennessee Attorney General Herbert H. Slatery III.
The suit is against the Biden administration’s new rule for the USDA that was implemented May 5th, earlier this year.
Federal funding for school lunch programs will be withheld to states unless they comply with a new interpretation of Title IX that includes LGBT+ protections.
In the lawsuit, which was announced Tuesday, Rokita and Slatery claim the new rule was unlawful for multiple reasons, including states not having input on it and that it was based on a flawed interpretation of U.S. Supreme Court precedents. The states say that it threatens their Title IX rights and school’s funding for SNAP lunches.
“We all know the Biden administration is dead-set on imposing an extreme left-wing agenda on Americans nationwide,” Attorney General Rokita said in the press release. “But they’ve reached a new level of shamelessness with this ploy of holding up food assistance for low-income kids unless schools do the Left’s bidding.”
However, when the USDA’s new rule was implemented, the Biden Administration cited that it was consistent with protection from discrimination over sexual identity and gender orientation based on the Supreme Court’s Bostock v. Clayton County decision. That 2020 decision, related to Title VII, says that LGBT+ discrimination is inherently tied to sex discrimination.
