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Ohio joins lawsuit against Biden administration over gender discrimination protections

Dave Yost speaks at the Ohio Republican Party event, Tuesday, Nov. 6, 2018, in Columbus, Ohio. Yost was elected as the next Ohio attorney general.
Tony Dejak
/
Associated Press
Yost filed joined 21 others Tuesday to file the lawsuit. He says the guidance imposes "new and unlawful regulatory measures on state agencies and operators that recieve federal financial assistance from the United States Department of Agriculture."

Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost joined 21 other states Thursday suing the Biden Administration over policy updates to Title IX and food assistance programs for schools.

The updates prohibit discrimination of gender identity and sexual orientation. They will require schools receiving food benefits, like SNAP, to investigate discrimination complaints and update its policies.

If schools fail to do so, they could lose funding from those benefits. Yost claims these changes are illegal.

"Title IX does not extend to the things that they want to do," he said. "They just don't have the authority."

Yost adds that states were not given the opportunity to provide input

"They did not act properly under the administrative procedure act and we think there are fatal flaws here," he said.

In a letter from May, Yost and other attorneys general asked the Biden administration to withdraw the new policy.

Tennessee and Indiana is leading the lawsuit and the attorney generals from Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Georgia, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, Virginia and West Virginia have joined the lawsuit in addition to Ohio.

Tyler Thompson was a reporter and on-air host for 89.7 NPR News. Thompson, originally from northeast Ohio, has spent the last three years working as a Morning Edition host and reporter at NPR member station KDLG Public Radio and reporter at the Bristol Bay Times Newspaper in Dillingham, Alaska.