SARASOTA COUNTY, Fla — Sarasota County School Board leaders voted late Tuesday night to reject complying with changes to Title IX, throwing support behind dissenting voices including Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Attorney General Ashley Moody.
Bridget Ziegler, Sarasota County School Board member and co-founder of Moms for Liberty, was the driving force behind this proposed county-level resolution. School board members were in line with Ziegler, voting 4-1 not to comply with the changes.
The reason for the pushback against the newly revised Title IX is due to how the federal regulation now defines sex-based discrimination.
After the U.S. Department of Education finalized the changes in April, Title IX now clarifies that discrimination against students over gender identity or sexual orientation also violates the regulation, in addition to what was traditionally defined as sex-based discrimination.
In a tweet on April 25, Ziegler said the new language added to Title IX is an "attack on girls & women, attack on parental rights, and an attack on our constitutional rights. It won't work."
She added, "Voters in Florida & in Sarasota overwhelmingly voted FOR parental rights & AGAINST the radical gender ideology agenda in schools & sports."
Ziegler ended the tweet by saying she was grateful for DeSantis, Moody and Florida Education Commissioner Manny Diaz Jr. and echoing DeSantis' mantra "We Won't Comply."
Ziegler's statements and the resolution she put to the Sarasota County School Board are in line with DeSantis' stance on Title IX changes.
According to the governor, Florida will not change any policies or procedures currently in place that would now violate the revised version of Title IX. On April 29, Moody announced Florida would join a federal lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the changes.
The resolution states in part that the DOE's "unlawful attempt to redefine 'sex' to include 'gender identity' would have disastrous impacts to girls and women's safety in restrooms, locker rooms, and sports."
Florida already has a controversial law that DeSantis made official in 2021, which bans transgender athletes from competing in women’s sports.
What do the Title IX revisions do?
Title IX is a civil rights law enacted in 1972 prohibiting sex-based discrimination in educational programs. It was created as a follow-up to the Civil Rights Act of 1964, in response to the lack of equal representation and treatment for women and girls in K-12 schools and higher education.
In the 1,577-page filing, the U.S. Department of Education states that schools and universities that get public, federal funding must abide by Title IX.
It makes clear that gender identity and sexual orientation are to be included in the definition of "sex-based" discrimination.
"The Department’s proposed regulations will also strengthen protections for LGBTQI+ students by clarifying that Title IX’s protections against discrimination based on sex apply to discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity," a fact sheet from DOE said.
Also notable Title IX revisions: The revisions also do away with Trump-era provisions to Title IX that narrowed the definition of sexual harassment and required colleges to investigate claims only if they're first reported to certain officials, like filing a police report. These changes mark the second time in two years Title IX has undergone revisions.
10 Tampa Bay's Parisa Akbarpour and the Associated Press contributed to this report.