Eleven US states have filed a lawsuit challenging the Obama administration's guidance to public schools on bathroom access for transgender students.
The lawsuit accuses the President's administration of trying to turn schools into "laboratories for a massive social experiment". Several conservative-leaning states threatened legal action earlier this month after the US Education and Justice departments issued a directive to schools to allow transgender students to use bathrooms that match their gender identity. Texas, Oklahoma, Alabama, Wisconsin, West Virginia, Tennessee, Maine, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Utah and Georgia are listed as plaintiffs in the lawsuit, which seeks to have the directive declared unlawful. It accuses the Obama administration of "running roughshod over common sense policies" that protect children. The 13 May directive did not impose a legal requirement, but officials said it was meant to clarify expectations of school districts that receive funding from the federal government. Texas' lieutenant governor Dan Patrick said his state was prepared to forfeit $10bn of federal public school funding in defiance of the decree. Gay, lesbian and transgender civil rights organisation Human Rights Campaign, meanwhile, hailed the guidelines as "groundbreaking". North Carolina is already embroiled in a legal battle with the Justice Department over its controversial bathroom access law, which the Obama administration says violates transgender people's civil rights.
The lawsuit accuses the President's administration of trying to turn schools into "laboratories for a massive social experiment". Several conservative-leaning states threatened legal action earlier this month after the US Education and Justice departments issued a directive to schools to allow transgender students to use bathrooms that match their gender identity. Texas, Oklahoma, Alabama, Wisconsin, West Virginia, Tennessee, Maine, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Utah and Georgia are listed as plaintiffs in the lawsuit, which seeks to have the directive declared unlawful. It accuses the Obama administration of "running roughshod over common sense policies" that protect children. The 13 May directive did not impose a legal requirement, but officials said it was meant to clarify expectations of school districts that receive funding from the federal government. Texas' lieutenant governor Dan Patrick said his state was prepared to forfeit $10bn of federal public school funding in defiance of the decree. Gay, lesbian and transgender civil rights organisation Human Rights Campaign, meanwhile, hailed the guidelines as "groundbreaking". North Carolina is already embroiled in a legal battle with the Justice Department over its controversial bathroom access law, which the Obama administration says violates transgender people's civil rights.
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