11 states file suit against Obama administration for bathroom policy
The controversy over bathrooms has deepened as 11 states filed a federal lawsuit against the Obama administration for mandating transgender students be allowed to use the bathroom of their choice.
The suit was filed in a Texas federal court by states who object to the federal government policy dictating which public school bathrooms students are allowed to use. The Obama administration has threatened to cut off federal funding to school districts that do not comply.
The 11 states include Alabama, Georgia, Lousiana, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, West Virginia, Wisconsin, as well as the Arizona Department of Education and Maine’s Republican Gov. Paul LePage. A school district from Arizona and one from Texas are also party to the suit, which was filed against the Departments of Justice, Education and Labor, as well as the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
Bathroom politics was hoisted to the national stage following dispute over a state law in North Carolina that mandated people to use the bathroom corresponding to the gender on their birth certificate. The federal government warned the state it needed to change the policy, but North Carolina responded by suing the Justice Department. The department filed a countersuit later the same day.
The lawsuit filed Wednesday said that the directive of the Obama administration issued two weeks ago, which was not an executive order, “has no basis in law.”
It said the administration “conspired to turn workplaces and educational settings across the country into laboratories for a massive social experiment, flouting the democratic process, and running roughshod over common sense policies protecting children and basic privacy rights.”
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is expected to publicly announce the suit in a press conference Wednesday.
This story was originally published May 25, 2016 at 3:01 PM with the headline "11 states file suit against Obama administration for bathroom policy."