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Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita is co-leading a 22-state lawsuit against the Biden administration over its demands that schools enact certain transgender policies as part of qualifying to receive nutritional assistance.
Rokita
“We all know the Biden administration is dead-set on imposing an extreme left-wing agenda on Americans nationwide,” Rokita said. “But they’ve reached a new level of shamelessness with this ploy of holding up food assistance for low-income kids unless schools do the Left’s bidding.”
The lawsuit, co-led by Tennessee Attorney General Herbert H. Slatery III, specifically names the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) as defendant. On May 5, the USDA’s Food and Nutrition Services issued guidance to Indiana and other states announcing that discrimination on the basis of sex in Title IX and the Food and Nutrition Act includes discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity.
This new guidance has jeopardized states’ Title IX and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) school lunch funding.
In the lawsuit, the attorneys general argue the USDA’s guidance is unlawful for several reasons – including that states never had opportunity for input on such a policy change and that the guidance is based on a misapplication of U.S. Supreme Court precedents.
According to Rokita, the Biden administration’s actions will “inevitably result in regulatory chaos that threatens essential nutritional services to some of Indiana’s most vulnerable citizens.”
The National School Lunch Program services nearly 30 million schoolchildren each day, many who rely on it for breakfast, lunch, or both. Approximately 100,000 public and non-profit private schools and residential childcare institutions receive federal funding to provide subsidized free or reduced-price meals for qualifying children.
Prior to this lawsuit, Rokita and 25 other attorneys general signed a letter to President Biden expressing their concerns.
Earlier this month, Rokita won a legal battle over what he calls “transgender extremism” on another front as a U.S. district court barred the Biden administration from enforcing federal “guidance” to coerce schools and employers to, as Rokita says, “kowtow to transgender extremism.”
Rokita continues to defend a new Indiana law protecting girls’ sports against a what he calls a “baseless” lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).
“We are fighting for Hoosier common sense and the rule of law wherever they come under challenge,” Rokita said. “And we will continue doing the work that the people of Indiana elected us to do.”