POLITICS, NOT STUDENTS, STILL AT HEART OF BATHROOM CONCERNS
Just when you thought the GOP had gotten its collective mind out of the bathroom, President Donald Trump flushed.
On Wednesday, the Trump administration rescinded Obama administration protections for transgender students allowing them to use bathrooms corresponding with their gender identity.
In a joint letter, top officials from the Justice Department and the Education Department rejected the previous administration’s directive, saying it was improperly and arbitrarily devised, “without due regard for the primary role of the states and local school districts in establishing educational policy.”
That’s funny. It’s funny because Tennessee lawmakers argued the same thing against Obama’s rule last year, and Obama’s directive specifically left it to the states and local schools to find ways to accommodate transgender students.
Translation: Local schools would figure out how to do this — add or redesignate bathrooms, add new signs, hold school discussions, whatever they deemed they needed to do to provide privacy to all students.
At the time, then-U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch said “there is no room in our schools for discrimination of any kind, including discrimination against transgender students on the basis of their sex. This guidance gives administrators, teachers and parents the tools they need to protect transgender students from peer harassment and to identify and address unjust school policies.”
The White House further clarified that “the guidance” was not an enforcement action and didn’t make any additional requirements under the law. “Decisions on sensitive issues like this should continue to be made at the local level,” the White House said.
But social conservatives argued that Obama’s policy would allow potential sexual predators access to bathrooms and create an unsafe environment for children, and that’s what Tennessee lawmakers argued while seeking a state law that would require students to use the bathrooms matching the sex on their birth certificate.
In arguing against the Obama directive, Republicans claimed to see the “heavy hand” and “long arm” of the federal government in it. Obama’s directive (like Trump’s) didn’t carry the weight of law, but it does (like Trump’s ultimately) carry a stick: In all school civil rights guidance, from racial equality to girls’ equal access in sports, schools can face loss of federal education funding if they violate a child’s civil rights. And make no mistake, this policy will still be decided by the courts — not as policy, but as a civil rights issue.
But social conservatives continue to grandstand. (This is, after all, the GOP that wants less regulation but feels the need to stop everyone, about everything, to check their papers — now even a birth certificate bathroom test.)
“The federal government has absolutely no right to strip parents and local schools of their rights to provide a safe learning environment for children,” said Tony Perkins, president of the Washington, D.C.-based Family Research Council.
Let’s review: Obama’s directive said it’s up to the states to figure out how to be fair and not discriminate. Our Volunteer State and others, in effect, said we don’t want the Obama directive because it should be up to the states. And the Trump administration just rescinded the Obama guidance because — you guessed it — it should be up to the states.
This is like dogs chasing their tails — all to make political statements.
The silly saga began playing out in the Tennessee General Assembly last May when 26 of 28 members of Tennessee’s GOPrun Senate called on Republican Gov. Bill Haslam to file a lawsuit challenging Obama’s directive. Obama’s action came in the aftermath of North Carolina passing a law that among other things restricted transgender students to restrooms and locker room matching the sex on their birth certificates and official school documents.
The dogs can’t catch and hang on to their tails, and they grow dizzier and dizzier. But, by golly, each dog wants a bite and a directive with its party label on it.
The effect of Trump’s directive likely will be nothing because a federal court has already issued a nationwide injunction barring enforcement of the Obama order, and the ACLU already has another similar civil rights case in the pipeline to the Supreme Court.
But again, compliance is really simple: School leaders must, on their own and from state to state, figure out how to make sure there are private and safe bathrooms for everyone.
This seems like just another “duh” moment that politicians don’t seem to get — especially conservatives. This was already in state and local purview. It’s already exactly what we expect our school systems to do.
Why don’t Jeff Sessions and Donald Trump find something more important to do than pander to the ultra right and reinvent the wheel just to brand it GOP.