On Monday, Arizona Superintendent of Public Instruction Diane Douglas notified Arizona State representative of her shared “concerns about the recent “guidance” on transgender students issued to schools earlier this month by the U.S. Departments of Justice and Education.” In a letter to the legislators, Douglas stated that her “office has also fielded many calls and emails from concerned citizens.”
“I firmly believe that this is yet another example of the White House attempting to use the federal government and its funding mechanisms to inappropriately control the education of our children,” wrote Douglas. However, Douglas passed responsibility to school boards to decide how to handle the matter in a statement issued on May 13, shortly after the federal directive was announced.
In that statement, Douglas said she would “never dictate how locally elected school boards should manage their restroom facilities, and certainly would not do so under the threat of lost funding. I have full confidence
that government at its least and lowest level is most answerable to constituents on these matters.”
In response to Douglas’ mixed statements, Representative Bob Thorpe said, “I am pleased that Superintendent of Education Diane Douglas quickly recognized and publicly disagreed with the transgender bathroom overreach by the Obama administration. However, I am disappointed that neither the ADE or the AG have yet to issue a definitive policy statement refuting this Federal overreach. I am also very concerned that the ADE seems reluctant to establish a statewide policy, where some might interrupt Douglas’ statement as merely punting this important decision down to the local board level. It would not be in the interest of our students, or our state, to have inconsistent bathroom policies from district to district.”
Thorpe spearheaded the effort to call on the Arizona Attorney General and Douglas to fight back against the loss of funding threats made by federal officials to states if they did not comply with the transgender policy “guidance.”
The letter was co-signed by Senator Sylvia Allen, and representatives Brenda Barton, Paul Boyer, Karen Fann, Mark Finchem, Vince Leach, and Anthony Kern.
In their letter, the legislators argue that the issue is “not a moral issue, it is a legal state’s rights issue, and as a sovereign state, Arizona is protected by the 10th Amendment and thus is under no legal obligation to provide these accommodations merely based upon the suggestion, or coercion, of the Obama administration.”
For her part, Douglas says she is “intently awaiting guidance” from the Attorney General’s office.
On a national level, Congressman Luke Messer, of Indiana, introduced legislation last week to block the Obama’s administration’s new guidelines. The Shelbyville Republican’s bill would prevent schools from losing federal funding if they don’t follow the guidelines.
Messer said such decisions “should be made at the state and local level by people who will put the interest of our kids ahead of political ideology.”
“It’s irresponsible for the Obama administration to begin this social experiment in the bathrooms of our nation’s elementary schools,” Messer said in a statement.
Indiana Superintendent of Public Instruction Glenda Ritz praised the directive last week. But Indiana Gov. Mike Pence criticized the guidelines, saying “the federal government has no business getting involved in issues of this nature.”
More than three dozen House Republicans sent a letter to President Obama on Monday asking him to rescind “your poorly executed threat to school districts across the country and reaffirm their right to govern themselves as they see fit within the bounds of the law.”
“We view this as an effort to implement your administration’s political agenda outside the bounds of the law and against the will of the American people,” the lawmakers wrote.