Attorney General Steve Marshall on Thursday blasted President Joe Biden and his administration for "acting beyond their authority" by attempting to pressure Alabama to shift toward genderless bathrooms in schools.
The Biden administration has attempted to force Alabama's hand by withholding federal nutritional assistance from schools on the grounds of sex discrimination.
Marshall, who has joined a lawsuit along with 21 other state attorneys general against the administration over the policy, emphasized in an interview on Fox News Channel that Alabama was not "bowing to the Biden administration on having genderless schools."
"I think very clearly that state sovereignty isn't for sale," Marshall told “Fox & Friends First.” "And for us particularly in Alabama, we see this administration take aim at very sensitive federal programs that states have been a part of and use those programs to enforce gender ideology that people of Alabama have specifically rejected.
"[W]e can say it worries us, but at the same time, we have a broader obligation to our citizens to make sure that we're enforcing Alabama policy. Clearly, this administration is acting beyond their authority, attempting to impose their specific agenda that they can't do at the ballot box in Alabama. We believe that these programs can continue; that we can be able to use the efforts that we have in the past to be able to implement these programs cooperatively, but not doing so bowing to the Biden administration decision on having genderless schools, which we specifically rejected."
Marshall also penned an op-ed, titled "Biden administration demands Alabama embrace genderless schools or else, but we aren’t giving in," in which he railed against the Biden White House's plan. He deemed it "illegal and unconstitutional."
He wrote in the op-ed, "By issuing a USDA memorandum and accompanying administrative rule, the administration has waged a campaign to impose the left’s extremist "gender identity" agenda on schoolchildren with the implied threat that if states resist, their programs and public schools will get less money from the federal government.
"It is important to understand how compliance with the left’s radical gender identity agenda would destroy the educational experiences of students — girls in particular. The Biden administration’s own fact sheet about its guidance indicates that preventing a boy from using the girls’ restroom would be discrimination if the boy identifies as a girl. Similarly, the fact sheet suggests that preventing a boy from trying out for the girls’ cheerleading squad would be discrimination if the boy identifies as a girl. This is what the left wants to see in Alabama’s schools. "
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