Mississippi Gov.: Schools "Should Not Participate" in Obama's "Social Experiment" 

The Mississippi Gov.,who recently passed an anti-LGBT law in his state, spoke out against the Obama administration's directive that transgender students are protected under Title IX.

In a Facebook post published on Friday, Phil Bryant said that the "Mississippi Department of Education should disregard the so-called guidance the Obama administration has issued regarding public schools' restroom policies."

The U.S. Department of Education and Department of Justice announced the directive on Friday, explaining the obligations that schools receiving public funding have to their transgender students.

The directive obligations include respecting the gender identity of transgender students by using the student's preferred name and pronouns, and ensuring them access to sports teams, educational opportunities, and sex-segregated facilities that correspond with their gender identity, according to a letter sent Friday to public K-12 schools nationwide, as well as to colleges and universities that receive federal funding.

The Mississippi Gov. called the directive "nonbinding," saying it "does not carry the force of law." "Because these decisions are better left to the states, and not made at the point of a federal bayonet, Mississippi's public schools should not participate in the president's social experiment," said the Gov. via Facebook.

In April, Gov. Phil Bryant signed House Bill 1523 into law. It is considered to be the nation's most aggressive anti-LGBT law.

The law will take effect in July, and allow businesses, individuals, and religiously affiliated organizations to deny service to LGBT people, single mothers, and others who somehow offend an individual's "sincerely held religious belief." It also directly targets transgender residents, effectively claiming that one's sex assigned at birth is immutable, and will be the only gender recognized by the state.

The federal government announced that it is suing North Carolina over HB 2 on Monday, just hours after Gov. Pat McCrory announced his own federal suit against the Department of Justice for threatening the state's federal funding because HB 2 violates existing civil rights protections against discrimination based on sex in employment and education. The federal government announced Wednesday that it would not be withholding federal funds from North Carolina while the legal battle wages on.

Read the full post from Bryant's Facebook below.