Florida Instructs Schools to Ignore ‘Not Binding’ Title IX Federal Guidance

Florida’s Department of Education on Thursday instructed school officials to ignore new federal guidance that interprets Title IX sex-based discrimination protections in schools to include the disputed concept of gender identity.

This comes after Florida’s Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services (FDACS), which administers the national school-lunch program, notified schools without consulting Florida’s education department that they should comply with the federal guidance.

“[President Joe Biden] and [FDACS Commissioner Nikki Fried] are attempting to hold our most vulnerable students hostage over radical gender ideology. Florida schools have NO obligation to follow this federal guidance and will not be threatened into submission,” Florida Education Commissioner Manny Diaz Jr. said on Twitter.

In a memo sent to state superintendents, school boards, private school owners, and charter school governing boards, Diaz Jr. informed school officials that the guidance issued by the U.S. Department of Education (USDOE) and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is “not binding law, do not create any new legal obligations, and should not be treated as governing law.”

Diaz Jr. said the federal agencies acknowledged in litigation that its guidance is not binding or enforceable, and he instructed school officials not to modify their practices or procedures based on the document.

The USDA announced in May that schools that want national lunch program funding must allow transgender youth to use gender-designated bathrooms of their choice. But Diaz noted that this would be in violation of Florida law.

“Specifically, for example, nothing in these guidance documents requires you to give biological males who identify as female access to female bathrooms, locker rooms, or dorms; to assign biological males who identify as female to female rooms on school field trips; or to allow biological males who identify as female to compete on female sports teams,” Diaz wrote.

“To the extent that you do any of these things, you