Alabama Attorney General Luther Strange is having nothing of the attempt to “redefine the word ‘sex’ in Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 to mean ‘gender identity.’”
The “significant guidance letter” delivered to federally funded schools by President Barack Obama’s administration in early May requires schools to define a student’s sexual identity based not on biological traits, but on feelings. And if the schools don’t obey the demand they could risk losing federal funding, according to news reports.
But Alabama along with Texas, Wisconsin, West Virginia, Tennessee, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Utah, Georgia, Governor Paul Lepage of Maine, the Arizona Department of Education, Harrold Independent School District in Texas and Heber-Overgaard Unified School District in Arizona have all said “no” by filing a lawsuit against the directive May 25.
Declaring the federal demands are “unlawful” and “capricious and arbitrary,” the lawsuit calls for a permanent injunction preventing the Obama administration from implementing and enforcing its rules.
Strange wrote in a press release, “Title IX is about discrimination ‘on the basis of sex,’ not gender identity.”
He noted the lawsuit was filed “on behalf of Alabama … to prevent the Department of Justice and Department of Education from enforcing the guidance letter.”
“The Obama administration has taken government overreach to an unprecedented level,” Strange told The Montgomery Advertiser. “Directly challenging the personal privacy of America’s schoolchildren while threatening to withhold funds from schools which refuse to accept this form of coercion. President Obama does not have legal grounds to rewrite the law. … This disturbing attempt to transform America’s classrooms into laboratories for the Obama administration’s social experiments will not stand up to the test of law.”
Whose authority?
In the press release, Strange noted, “This lawsuit will determine whether (the departments) have the authority to implement the policy announced in the letter. … Until the lawsuit is resolved, I would encourage educators to simply ignore the guidance letter.”
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said of the lawsuit, “By forcing through his policies by executive action, President Obama excluded the voice of the people. We stand today to ensure those voices are heard.”
Although the letter does not explicitly mention any repercussions for failing to follow the guidelines, previous action by the Obama administration demonstrates that failure to comply comes with a price tag.
Earlier in 2016 a school district outside of Chicago created its own standards for balancing the needs of a transgender female student — a teenage boy presenting himself as a girl — with those of the student’s female teammates. Demanding full inclusion and affirmation of his gender identity as a female, the transgender student balked at the school’s offer of a private changing area and sued the school district demanding he be allowed to use the same locker room facilities as the girls. Citing Title IX, the Departments of Education and Justice threatened to withhold some of the school’s $6 million in federal funds if they did not submit to the student’s demands.
Based on birth certificate
Harrold Independent School District in Texas issued new guidelines May 23 in defiance of the Obama administration’s interpretation of Title IX, stating a student’s birth certificate will determine a student’s gender identity on campus and all multiple-occupancy bathrooms or changing facilities “shall be designated for and used only by individuals based on their biological sex.”
(Baptist Press, TAB)
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