Left-wing groups are filing complaints and lawsuits claiming that conservative school districts are “discriminating” against transgender students by adopting policies based on biological sex.
Meanwhile, parents nationwide are pushing back against transgender school policies. Many schools and universities now require girls and women to share restrooms and locker rooms with biological males.
Many parents also have gone on the offensive at school board meetings to stop schools from calling their children by transgender pronouns, sometimes without their knowledge.
The watchdog group released a statement on Sept. 18 defending a conservative Texas school board’s restroom policy matching biological sex.
“They want schools to self-adopt gender identity policies,” Mr. Hullihan added.
Left-wing advocacy groups contend that transgender students are being unjustly discriminated against.
The complaints allege that school restrooms and pronoun policies based on sex at birth violate transgender students’ civil liberties under Title IX. This 1972 law bars discrimination based on sex in any federally funded education program.
Critics say the Biden administration is trying to change the meaning of Title IX by claiming that it protects gender identity.
The Department of Education issued “guidance” in June 2021 prohibiting discrimination based on gender identity and promised enforcement against violators, including loss of federal funding for schools.
The school board adopted policies contradicting the federal government’s “transgender rights” interpretation. The district designated personal spaces according to biological sex and instructed staff, educators, and other employees to address students using the pronouns associated with their birth certificates.
Keller ISD also required its schools to make reasonable accommodations for students, including single-user bathrooms for transgender students.
Later, however, the district posted on its website that transgender students could use the restroom of their choice.
Parents at Frisco ISD complained during public comment at a board meeting that a girl identifying as a boy was seen using a prosthetic device called a “Stand to Pee Packer” to relieve herself at the boys’ urinal.
Citizens Defending Freedom defended the Keller district, saying in a news release that the Biden-aligned ACLU of Texas had made “baseless allegations” of discrimination.
“The ACLU’s complaint lacks both factual and legal merit, and it appears to be an attempt to intimidate Keller ISD and other school districts into submission,” the group stated.
The U.S. Justice Department under President Biden has wrongly targeted outspoken parents, according to conservative lawmakers.
In this Washington-area suburb, a girl was raped in a restroom by a skirt-wearing boy who was quietly transferred to another school, where he sexually assaulted another girl.
The first girl’s father grew angry when the school board closed the discussion on the matter and he was arrested. That triggered a parents’ revolt that spread from Loudoun County across the nation.
The report resulted from an investigation led by Republican Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) into the misuse of government resources against U.S. citizens.
Contrary to the ACLU’s claims, no federal or state law prohibits the actions of Keller ISD and other schools to base policy on sex instead of gender ideology, according to the CDF’s news release.
Interpreting Title IX as the ACLU did would require a “distorted, illogical reading of the law, as Title IX explicitly allows for distinctions based on biological sex,” the CDF said.
The watchdog group stated that the ACLU’s reliance on the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2020 decision in Bostock v. Clayton County is misplaced. That opinion dealt with Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The high court ruled that employers can’t discriminate based on homosexuality or gender identity status.
Bostock does not extend to the Title IX context, as courts nationwide have affirmed, CDF argues.
Title IX contains provisions that authorize or allow sex-separate activities and facilities based on biological sex. CDF stated that these provisions are consistent with the law’s intent and congressional review.
The ACLU’s complaint claims that Keller ISD’s policies may harm the mental health of transgender, nonbinary, and intersex students.
CDF contends, however, that Keller ISD is one of the few school districts to assert that the best way to protect all students and respect parental authority is to maintain the binary distinction between male and female.
“I am proud to stand alongside CDF in its support of Keller ISD on this issue,” said Janelle Davis, an education law attorney who collaborates with CDF.
Conservative states such as Texas are getting involved in fighting the Biden administration’s take on Title IX as well.
DOE wants to “radically transform” educational institutions by equating sex with gender identity or transgender status, according to the lawsuit filed by the Texas Office of the Attorney General.
As legal challenges mount on both sides, it becomes more likely that the U.S. Supreme Court will weigh in.
U.S. District Judge Michael J. Newman for the Southern District of Ohio dismissed all of the parents’ federal claims, effectively terminating the case, according to an ACLU release.
“Nothing in the constitutional guarantees of parenting rights, equal protection, or free exercise of religion mandates that transgender students be excluded from gender-appropriate communal restrooms on the basis of their classmates’ beliefs and values,” said David Carey, deputy legal director at the ACLU of Ohio.
