Capitol Notebook: Iowa AG joins lawsuit challenging Title IX

Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird joined a lawsuit seeking to block new Title IX regulations proposed by the Biden administration that prohibit discrimination in education based on sexual orientation and gender identity.

The lawsuit, led by Arkansas and Missouri and joined by Iowa, Nebraska and North Dakota, argues the U.S. Department of Education’s new Title IX rules overstep the agency’s bounds and infringe on existing state law.

It is the latest of multiple lawsuits lodged by at least 20 Republican-led states against the rule, which the department announced in April and is set to take effect Aug. 1. Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds said on Monday she had asked Bird to litigate the rule.

Although the rule does not govern athletic participation, Bird in a statement accused Biden of threatening girls’ sports.

“With Biden’s radical gender ideology mandate, he has not only robbed young women of the opportunity to safely compete and succeed in the sports they love, he has violated their privacy,” Bird said. “No schoolgirl should be forced to change next to or share shower spaces with boys. I am suing to stop Biden’s war on women and protect girls in schools.”

The final rule effectively expands the scope of the 1972 law that prohibits sex-based discrimination in education at K-12 schools and higher education institutions. The new rules extend those protections to prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation, gender identity and sex characteristics.

In the lawsuit, the states argue that Title IX refers only to biological sex, and the administration’s interpretation of the law exceeds its authority under federal law and the Constitution.

Many of the states suing, including Iowa, have laws that would be in violation of the rule once it takes effect. Reynolds signed a law last year that requires school students and staff to use the bathroom that matches their sex assigned at birth.

The rule does not address how schools should approach the participation of transgender girls and women in sports. The agency has proposed a separate rule, which still is under review, regarding athletics.

Iowa ranked No. 6 best state

U.S. News and World Report ranked Iowa among the top states in the United States in its ranking of the best states released Tuesday.

The metric ranked states based on categories like education, economy, crime and corrections, infrastructure and opportunity. Iowa ranked No. 10 in infrastructure and No. 3 in opportunity. It ranked lower in economy, at No. 36, and in health care, at No. 21.

The state jumped up one spot overall from the 2023 rankings to be rated No. 6 this year. Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds, a Republican, said the ranking is the result of Republican priorities like cutting taxes.

“Iowa is recognized as one of the best states to live, work, and raise a family because we rely on common sense and respect the people we serve. We are on a path to being number one, and we are showing the country that small states can do big things,” Reynolds said in a statement. “From cutting taxes and shrinking government to giving our teachers the largest pay raise in state history, I’m proud of the foundation we are building in Iowa.”

Iowa AG urges defunding of U.N. aid group in Gaza

Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird co-led a letter to Congress with 23 other Republican-led states urging leaders to pull funding from the U.N. Relief and Works Agency, a global aid group that provides aid to Palestinian refugees in Gaza and elsewhere.

The call comes after claims from Israel that more than a dozen UNRWA staff members participated in the Oct. 7 attack on Israel perpetrated by Hamas. Some of those accused have been fired, but investigations are ongoing, the agency has said, according to Reuters.

A U.N. review of the agency in April found that problems existed with the agency’s neutrality, including staff expressing political views and problematic content in school textbooks. The review’s leaders said Israel had not provided evidence that staff were members of terrorist groups, according to Reuters.

The United States paused its funding to the organization after the initial claims of staff participating in the Oct. 7 attack. In a funding package passed this year, Congress halted funding to the agency until March 2025. Bird’s letter urges congressional leaders to make that permanent.

“We would never tolerate American tax dollars being used to teach antisemitic hate here at home — and we should hold foreign organizations we support to the same standard,” the letter says. “Congress should take this opportunity and moment of moral clarity to say enough is enough and stop funding UNRWA for good.”

Gazette-Lee Des Moines Bureau