Senate fails to overturn Biden’s plan to withhold lunch aid from schools that don’t let boys use girls’ bathrooms

Senate Republicans tried to overturn it in voting against the USDA reinterpretation of Title IX via the Congressional Review Act, but that vote was short at 47 to 50. "Don’t be fooled here, the Biden Administration is the only player in this policy fight that is taking away lunches from children," said Kansas Senator Roger Marshall. "There is real-world evidence that USDA’s policy has already taken away school lunch funding from low-income children. Weaponizing school lunch money in pursuit of their radical agenda and putting students in the crosshairs is unconscionable, and we will not stand for it."

That rule, proposed in 2022, blasted by attorneys general and lawmakers across the US, has now gone into effect. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack made the proclamation in May 2022, saying that it would "interpret the prohibition on discrimination based on sex found in Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972... to include discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity."

The Department of Agriculture then went on to explain their bizarre reasoning, saying that in light of the Supreme Court decision that allowed a man who claimed to be transgender to appear at work in a funeral home wearing women's clothing, and to use the women's restroom at his workplace, they would prevent schools from receiving federal school lunch aid if those schools didn't allow boys to use girls' restrooms, locker rooms, or other facilities.

Vilsack said this was a way to "root out discrimination." His goal in withholding lunch aid from schools that do not put girls at risk of potential male aggression was to "help bring about much-needed change." It was shortly after this proclamation that it was revealed that a female student in Loudon County, Virginia was raped in a "gender-neutral" school bathroom by a male student who wore women's clothing.

Biden signed the executive order as soon as he took office on January 20, 2021. It read that "Children should be able to learn without worrying about whether they will be denied access to the restroom, the locker room, or school sports." It was this that Vilsack was trying to tackle.

Officials in Wyoming took issue with the plan to withhold school lunch aid. "I wish to denounce in the strongest terms possible the Biden Administration’s recent reinterpretation of the USDA's Title IX funding," said Wyoming Superintendent of Public Instruction Brian Schroeder. 26 attorneys general balked at the plans, saying "The Guidance flouts the rule of law, relies on patently incorrect legal analysis that is currently under scrutiny in the federal courts, and was issued without giving the States the requisite opportunity to be heard."