Feds Overreach, Hand Down Bathroom Guidance

Item: “Dear Colleague,” begins a joint letter, dated May 13, 2016, from the civil rights arms of the U.S. Department of Justice and U.S. Department of Education to interested parties. The notice begins in inimitable bureaucratese (albeit available in six languages other than English):

Schools across the country strive to create and sustain inclusive, supportive, safe, and nondiscriminatory communities for all students. In recent years, we have received an increasing number of questions from parents, teachers, principals, and school superintendents about civil rights protections for transgender students. Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 (Title IX) and its implementing regulations prohibit sex discrimination in educational programs and activities operated by recipients of Federal financial assistance. This prohibition encompasses discrimination based on a student’s gender identity, including discrimination based on a student’s transgender status.

Item: The Reuters wire service reported on May 16, 2016: “President Barack Obama said on Monday that his administration’s guidance on transgender issues is needed to help schools grapple with the sensitive topic and ensure that all children are treated fairly. Obama, in an interview with BuzzFeed news website broadcast live on Facebook and YouTube, said schools had been asking the Department of Education how they should handle questions they were facing with transgender youths. ‘We think it was important for schools who want to go ahead and, in a very practical way, try to deal with the school year — What are they going to be doing next year? How should we approach this? — that we give them our best judgment about how to approach it,’ Obama said.”

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