Says, 'I will not stand by silently while the Biden Administration strips young girls of their right of privacy and opportunity to succeed'

LITTLE ROCK – Arkansas Attorney General Leslie Rutledge, joining a coalition of 20 states and their attorneys general, filed a lawsuit to stop the Biden Administration from enforcing new, expansive, and unlawful interpretations of federal antidiscrimination laws. The lawsuit challenges federal guidance documents issued by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and the Department of Education (the Department) that purports to require schools to allow biological boys to compete on girls’ sports teams, whether employers and schools may maintain sex-separated showers and locker rooms, and whether individuals may be compelled to use another person’s preferred pronouns.

“All girls and women in America deserve the opportunity to succeed on the playing field and have their privacy respected,” said Attorney General Rutledge. “I will not stand by silently while the Biden Administration strips young girls of their right of privacy and opportunity to succeed.”

The 20-state coalition asks a federal district court in Tennessee to declare the guidance documents released by EEOC and Department invalid and unlawful and to prohibit their enforcement. The federal agencies claim that the guidance documents simply implement the Supreme Court’s decision in Bostock v. Clayton County, but that decision did not address any of the issues covered by the guidance documents released by EEOC and Department in June. In fact, the Court’s Bostock decision said clearly that it was leaving these issues open for another day. The agencies have no authority to unilaterally resolve these sensitive questions, let alone to do so without providing the public with notice and an opportunity to comment.

Joining Arkansas in the lawsuit are the attorneys general from the following states: Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee and West Virginia.

The case is Tennessee v. U.S. Department of Education, No. 3:21-cv-00308 in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee.