Paxton launches restroom lawsuit
11 states challenge administration over transgender policy in schools
AUSTIN — Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sued the Obama administration in U.S. District Court on Wednesday, locking arms with 10 other states to fight off a federal directive instructing schools to let transgender students use the bathroom they are most comfortable with or risk losing federal dollars.
Paxton, who has been a vocal critic of policies allowing transgender people to use the bathroom that matches their gender identity, admitted to a lack of data indicating student safety as a concern but said the lawsuit is about President Barack Obama’s administration imposing rules on states without congressional approval.
“By forcing through his policies by executive action, President Obama has excluded the voices of the people. We stand today to ensure those voices are heard,” Paxton said.
The suit was brought
both by the state and on behalf of Harrold Independent School District, a tiny K-12 system of roughly 100 students northwest of Wichita Falls with no known transgender students, said Superintendent David Thweatt.
Even so, the Harrold school board installed a new restroom policy Monday stating “every multiple occupancy bathroom or changing facility shall be designated for and used by only individuals based on their biological sex.” The superintendent or campus principal may make reasonable accommodations upon request when special circumstances arise, according to the policy.
“Washington’s mandate doesn’t fit our schools, so we are suing to keep the federal government out of our children’s locker rooms and restrooms,” Thweatt said.
Epicenter for lawsuits
While Paxton said he has met with parents opposed to transgender students sharing bathrooms with students of the opposite birth sex, he said he has not met with parents of transgender students. He said he was open to such meetings.
Wednesday’s lawsuit was filed by 10 states in addition to Texas, eight of which have Republican governors.
Texas has become an “epicenter” for multi-state lawsuits against the federal government, said Carl Tobias, a law professor at the University of Richmond who has followed a similar lawsuit in Virginia. One of the latest headline-grabbing multi-state lawsuits involved more than two dozen states challenging the federal government over the president’s executive action on immigration, which is pending before the U.S. Supreme Court.
“Everybody knows the 5th Circuit is one of the most conservative courts politically at the appellate level, so depending on the panel draw, plaintiffs are likely to fare well there,” Tobias said.
Paxton argues in the lawsuit that the U.S. Department of Education, the Department of Justice and other agencies and officials are using the strong arm of the government to “turn workplaces and educational settings across the country into laboratories for a massive social experiment, flouting the democratic process, and running roughshod over commonsense policies protecting children and basic privacy rights.”
The Obama administration issued “significant guidance” directly to schools earlier this month instructing school leaders across the nation to allow transgender students to use the bathroom that corresponds with the gender they identify with. The move followed a new law in North Carolina outlawing such practices, which prompted some businesses to cancel expansions in protest of the law.
Abbott, Patrick endorse suit
Gov. Greg Abbott and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick quickly praised Paxton’s move to sue the federal government after offering comments for weeks about the state’s need to protect women and girls from men using the ladies’ room.
“The president continues to violate the Constitution by trying to rewrite laws as if he were a king. The states serve as the last line of defense against an unlawfully expansive federal government, and I applaud Attorney General Paxton for fighting against the president’s attempt to rule by executive fiat,” Abbott said.
The lawsuit is an attempt to ensure Texas can ignore the Obama administration’s directive, which does not carry the force of law but signals that denying students access to the bathroom that matches their gender identity could come at the price of losing federal dollars for violating Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, which bans sexbased discrimination.
The issue first surfaced in Texas last year when voters in Houston repealed a wide-ranging antidiscrimination ordinance that included transgender people.
Abbott and other state officials had weighed in to favor the repeal, saying men should stay out of women’s restrooms.
In April, the issue gained new steam in Texas when Patrick announced he would support passage of a law in Texas to mandate public restroom use be governed by a person’s birth sex.
Within days, Patrick was demanding the resignation of the Fort Worth school superintendent for approving a new policy on transgender use of restrooms and locker rooms without allowing for input from parents and the public.
When the Obama administration issued its transgender bathroom directive, just as the state Republican Party convention was getting underway in Dallas, Patrick and other state leaders publicly directed Texas’ public school officials to ignore the order.
Attack on transgender people
The ACLU of Texas called the lawsuit “nothing but a political stunt,” adding that public-safety incidents in restrooms haven’t grown due to transgender people.
“This lawsuit is an attack by the attorney general on transgender Texans, plain and simple. While General Paxton sued the Obama administration, the real targets are vulnerable young people and adults who simply seek to live their lives free from discrimination when they go to school, work or the restroom,” said Rebecca Robertson, legal and policy director of the ACLU of Texas.
Paxton’s lawsuit is joined by Alabama, Arizona, Georgia, Louisiana, Maine, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Utah, West Virginia and Wisconsin.