TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Enforcement of a federal rule expanding anti-discrimination protections for LGBTQ+ students has been blocked in four states and a patchwork of places elsewhere by a federal judge in Kansas.
U.S. District Judge John Broomes suggested in his ruling Tuesday that the Biden administration should now consider whether forcing continued compliance is “worth the effort.”
Broomes’ decision was the third against the rule of a federal judge in less than three weeks, but more comprehensive than the others. It applies in Alaska, Kansas, Utah and Wyoming, which have processed more than the new rule. It also applies to a Stillwater, Oklahoma, high school that has a student suing over the rule, and to members of three groups supporting nationwide Republican efforts to roll back LGBTQ+ rights. They are all involved in a process.
Broomes, appointed by former President Donald Trump, instructed the three groups — Moms for Liberty, Young America’s Foundation and Female Athletes United — to file a list of schools at which their members’ children are students, lest their schools also comply. the rule. Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach, a Republican who argued the states’ case before Broomes last month, said it could be thousands of schools.
The Biden administration’s rule is expected to take effect in August under the Title IX civil rights law, passed in 1972, prohibiting sex discrimination in education. Broomes’ order is expected to remain in effect during the trial of the Kansas lawsuit, although the judge concluded that the states and three groups are likely to prevail.
Republicans argued that the rule represents a ruse by the Biden administration to allow transgender women to play on women’s and women’s sports teams, something prohibited or restricted in Kansas and at least 24 other states. The administration said it does not apply to athletics. Opponents of the rule also framed the issue as protecting the privacy and safety of women and girls in bathrooms and locker rooms.
“Gender ideology does not belong in public schools and we are glad the courts made the right decision to uphold parental rights,” Moms for Liberty co-founders Tina Descovich and Tiffany Justice said in a statement.
LGBTQ+ youth, their parents, health care providers and others say restrictions on transgender youth harm their mental health and make an often marginalized group even more vulnerable. The Department of Education has already stood by its rule and President Joe Biden has promised to protect LGBTQ+ rights.
The Department of Education did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment Tuesday.
In addition to Broomes, two other federal judges issued rulings in mid-June blocking the new rule in 10 other states. The rule would protect LGBTQ+ students by expanding the definition of sexual harassment in schools and colleges and adding safeguards for victims.
Like the other justices, Broomes considered the rule arbitrary and concluded that the Department of Education and its secretary, Miguel Cardona, exceeded the authority granted by Title IX. He also concluded that the rule violated the free speech and religious freedom rights of parents and students who reject transgender students’ gender identities and want to defend those views at school or elsewhere in public.
Broomes said his 47-page order leaves it to the Biden administration “to determine in the first instance whether continued enforcement in accordance with this ruling is worth the effort.”
Broomes also said the privacy and safety of non-transgender students could be harmed by the rule. He cited an Oklahoma high school student’s statement that “on some occasions” cisgender boys used the girls’ bathroom “because they knew they could get away with it.”
“It is not difficult to imagine that under the Final Rule, an older, working-class teenager could simply claim to identify as female to gain access to girls’ showers, locker rooms, or locker rooms so that she can observe her female classmates if undress. and shower,” Broomes wrote, echoing a common but largely false narrative from anti-trans activists about gender identity and how schools accommodate transgender students.
