A federal judge in Texas has blocked President Obama’s sweeping directive that would allow transgender students to use the bathroom and locker room associated with their gender identity. The decision was handed down Monday morning, which also happens to be the first day of class for most public schools in Texas.
U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor’s decision comes after Texas and twelve other states disputed the Obama directive in court by claiming it was unconstitutional. O’Connor ruled that Title IX, the federal law that prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex in federally funded education programs and activities, “is not ambiguous” about sex being defined as “the biological and anatomical differences between male and female students as determined at their birth.” O’Connor also stated that schools should have had an opportunity to weigh in on the directive before Obama announced it in May.
President Obama’s bathroom directive came on the heels of a Justice Department lawsuit against North Carolina over a bill — HB2 — that would disallow transgender students from using the bathroom aligned with their gender identity. U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch, herself from North Carolina, said that HB2 violates Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
A number of states are fighting back against Obama’s directive in court, including Texas, Alabama, Wisconsin, West Virginia, Tennessee, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Utah and Georgia, and the Republican governors of Maine, Mississippi and Kentucky.
(Via AP)