Today, the Arizona Attorney General and Arizona Superintendent of Public Instruction announced that they have joined ten other States in a federal lawsuit to challenge President Obama’s mandate requiring all public K-12 and postsecondary schools to open up boys’ and girls’ locker rooms and restrooms to students of the opposite sex, based on students’ perceptions of their “gender identity.” The Heber-Overgaard Unified School District has also joined the State’s lawsuit as a plaintiff.
Earlier this week, after Arizona Rep. Bob Thorpe led an effort by legislators to enlist the Attorney General and the Superintendent to challenge the federal “guidance.
Thorpe stated, “I am very pleased with Arizona’s decision to join Texas and the numerous other states in suing the Obama administration over issuing its transgender bathroom edict in furtherance of its liberal political agenda. I applaud my fellow legislators, Attorney General Brnovich and ADE Superintendent Diane Douglas for demonstrating leadership in pushing back against this unconstitutional federal overreach.”
Since the President has threatened to deny federal funding to all schools that object to this outrageous decree, Arizona has joined Texas, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Maine, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Utah, West Virginia and Wisconsin in a lawsuit filed in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas. The lawsuit is focused on who should set these sensitive policies – the federal government via unaccountable agencies or States and local school districts. The challenge seeks declaratory relief against a number of federal agencies in order to block the implementation of the administration’s unprecedented interpretation of the law.
“President Obama has no business setting locker room and restroom policies for our schools,” said Attorney General Brnovich. “Deciding how to protect our children and preserve their privacy, while balancing these complicated issues, is best done locally and not by some one-size-fits-all decree from Washington.”
“When Arizona students attend school, they deserve a safe environment that is free from bullying and discrimination, regardless of their gender identity,” said Superintendent Douglas. “I know that our districts and schools have policies in place to ensure that is the case. The fact that the federal government has yet again decided that it knows what is best for every one of our local communities is insulting and, quite frankly, intolerable.”
On May 13, the President issued so-called “significant guidance” to K-12 and postsecondary schools nationwide instructing those schools to grant students access to Title IX facilities including restrooms, locker rooms, and showers based on their gender identity. The non-binding guidance broadly defines “gender identity” as “an individual’s internal sense of gender,” regardless of “the person’s sex assignment at birth.” The guidance also carried the threat of withholding federal funding if schools are found by the U.S. Departments of Education and Justice to be out of compliance.