Tuesday, Attorney General Steve Marshall announced that the State of Alabama had filed suit against the Biden administration over its plan to withhold federal nutritional assistance from schools on the grounds of “sex discrimination.”
According to a release from the Alabama Attorney General’s Office, the administration could bar federal aid to schools over sex-separated bathrooms and gender-based sports teams.
Earlier this year, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced its guidance under the administration’s reformed Title IX policy. Needy children who attend Alabama schools could see their food nutritional assistance withheld as the state holds laws barring males from participating in female sports and utilizing girls’ locker rooms.
In a statement announcing the lawsuit, Marshall called the administration’s plan an “immoral and illegal scheme” and said that the federal guidance was based on the national left’s “extremist sexual politics.”
“Joe Biden and his administration are obsessed with imposing their extremist sexual politics on the people of our great nation, adults and children alike,” said Marshall. “Their latest plan—which comes at a time of skyrocketing inflation and food costs, as well as a looming recession—is to hold schoolchildren’s food hostage unless their schools submit to the left’s radical ‘gender identity’ agenda. This immoral and illegal scheme cannot stand. That is why I, along with 21 of my attorney general colleagues, have filed suit in federal court to block it.”
The lawsuit, which Alabama filed with 21 other states in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee, outlines that the USDA’s guidance conflicts with Title IX and the Food and Nutrition Act guidance.
Additionally, the attorneys general argue that the policy was issued without allowing feedback from states as required by the Administrative Procedures Act.
The National School Lunch Program serves nearly 30 million schoolchildren each day for breakfast and lunch meals, according to the attorney general’s office. Around 100,000 public and nonprofit private schools and residential childcare institutions receive federal funding to provide subsidized free or reduced-price meals for qualifying children.
Marshall joined attorneys general from Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia and West Virginia in filing the lawsuit.
Dylan Smith is a staff writer for Yellowhammer News. You can follow him on Twitter @DylanSmithAL
