A Texas judge just halted Obama’s new transgender policy, issuing a nationwide injunction just before schools start around the country.
Gov. Greg Abbott took to twitter to declare victory:
Huge victory slapping down Obama's public school bathroom dictate. #tcot @TexasGOP https://t.co/3u6Kzx0RLs
— Greg Abbott (@GregAbbott_TX) August 22, 2016
Here’s more:
A federal judge late Sunday blocked the Obama administration from taking any action that would force public schools to allow students the choice of bathrooms that match their gender identity.
The order came as many of the nation’s schools prepare to begin the new academic year and means they might not face federal sanctions if they choose to do nothing different to accommodate the restroom and locker room choices of transgender students.
Led by Texas, 13 states sued the federal government after the Education and Justice Departments sent a letter to schools nationwide in May, informing them that they must honor the bathroom choices of transgender students and could risk losing federal education funds if they do not.
Judge Reed O’Connor of Texas said the federal government failed to seek public comment first before issuing the letter. The Obama administration had argued that no such notice was necessary, because the letter was simply informing schools what courts and federal agencies had already determined.
But the judge said the letter was not merely advisory, because schools “jeopardize their federal educational funding by choosing not to comply.”
The judge also said the federal law that bars public schools from discriminating on the basis of sex does not apply to transgender students. When the law was passed, “the plain meaning of the term sex,” the judge wrote, “meant the biological and anatomical differences between male and female students as determined at their birth.”
The federal government is almost certain to appeal, especially because the judge said his order applies nationwide. The Justice Department had argued that such an order would improperly impose one court’s view on the many other courts wresting with the same issue “and on the many other states that have opted not to join this lawsuit, thereby preventing fuller development of the law on these important questions.”
It is a huge victory. But how long will we be able to hold on to it before some liberal appeals court judge kills the injunction? That seems to be the way things operate these days, and I bet it happens fairly quickly.