Eleven states are suing the Obama administration over its recent directive requiring public schools to grant transgender students access to bathrooms and locker rooms consistent with their gender identity.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott announced the lawsuit Wednesday on Twitter and NBC News reports that Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, a Republican “who was charged with securities fraud last month in federal court, was scheduled to make a formal announcement at a 3 pm press conference in Austin.”
According to the New York Times, the plaintiffs in the lawsuit include nine states—Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, West Virginia, and Wisconsin—as well as the governor of Maine, Paul R. LePage; the Arizona Department of Education; and school districts in Arizona and Texas.
The lawsuit (pdf), which names the U.S. Departments of Education, Justice, and Labor, charges that “Defendants have conspired to turn workplaces and educational settings across the country into laboratories for a massive social experiment, flouting the democratic process, and running roughshod over commonsense policies protecting children and basic privacy rights.”
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The joint guidance from the Departments of Education (DOE) and Justice (DOJ) did not lay out any new policy or propose any new law, but “makes clear that both federal agencies treat a student’s gender identity as the student’s sex for purposes of enforcing Title IX,” according to a DOJ statement. The federal anti-discrimination law in education, Title IX, says that schools receiving federal funds may not discriminate based on a student’s sex.
The Associated Press notes that Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick “has said the state is willing to forfeit $10 billion in federal education dollars rather than comply.”
The Human Rights Campaign (HRC) blasted Paxton on Wednesday for launching what the LGBTQ-rights group called “a shameful attack on transgender youth across the state and the nation.”
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