Education

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Americans United Responds To Lawsuit Seeking Right to Discriminate Against Transgender Students

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Americans United Responds To Lawsuit Seeking Right to Discriminate Against Transgender Students

On May 13, the U.S. Departments of Justice and Education reiterated that the nation’s civil-rights laws prohibit public schools from discriminating against transgender students. Thus, transgender students must be allowed to use the restrooms and participate in the activities designated for the gender with which they identify.

Today, eleven states—Alabama, Arizona, Georgia, Louisiana, Maine, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, West Virginia, and Wisconsin—filed a lawsuit in a federal court in Texas to challenge the government’s authority to protect these students’ civil rights.

Discriminating in the Dark

Title IX of the Civil Rights Act prohibits taxpayer-funded schools from discriminating on the basis of sex when it comes to (among other things) admissions and employment. The government, and increasingly the courts, interpret sex discrimination to include discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity (both of which are forms of impermissible sex stereotyping). Yet over the last few weeks, we've learned that applications for exemptions from Title IX have proliferated, and that the Obama administration has granted exemptions prolifically—and largely in secret.