Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders has signed a new executive order to combat expanded Title IX rules. The law was originally passed in 1972 to protect women from harassment on college campuses. Arkansas becomes one of the 15 Republican-led states to reject the Title IX rules, which also includes Texas, Louisiana and Oklahoma.
As Josie Lenora with Little Rock Public Radio reports, recently, President Joe Biden expanded Title IX to include rules to benefit transgender students. That includes requiring schools to honor a student’s preferred pronouns. Sanders says the rule changes are too long and that they quote, “erase women.” “Biden thinks anybody can be a woman just because they say so. As a woman, the mother of a daughter and our state’s first chief executive to give birth, thankfully not while in office. I can’t think of anything more offensive or dismissive.
Sanders also says Arkansas already has several laws that contradict the Title IX rule expansion. The executive order says women in Arkansas will not be quote, “forced to share locker rooms with a transgender person or be forced to use a student’s preferred pronouns.”
The rule changes do not mention sports. But Sanders’ executive order says biological men will not be allowed to play women’s sports in Arkansas.
