LINCOLN – Today, Nebraska, along with nine states, filed an action in Nebraska federal court challenging the U.S. Department of Education and the U.S. Department of Justice’s recent mandate changing current Title IX law regarding how schools assign students to showers, locker rooms, and restroom facilities. Current state law and federal regulations allow schools to maintain separate facilities based upon sex. The recent action by these two federal agencies to require showers, locker rooms, and bathrooms be open to both sexes based solely on the student’s choice, circumvents this established law by ignoring the appropriate legislative process necessary to change such a law. It also supersedes local school districts’ authority to address student issues on an individualized, professional and private basis. When a federal agency takes such unilateral action in an attempt to change the meaning of established law, it is incumbent upon those who want to maintain the rule of law to pursue legal clarity in federal court in order to enforce the rule of law.

Nebraska was also joined by the following states: Arkansas, Kansas, Michigan, Montana, North Dakota, Ohio, South Carolina, South Dakota, and Wyoming.