Estes Kefauver Federal Building & Courthouse Annex, Nashville. (Photo from GSA)
NASHVILLE | Tennessee Attorney General Herbert Slattery is leading a group of 20 states in suing the Biden administration over guidance in support of allowing transgender people to access school sports and bathrooms consistent with their gender identity.
The lawsuit, filed Aug. 30 before the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee, challenges the U. S. Department of Education and the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission over guidance issued in the wake of President Biden’s executive order directing federal agencies to broadly implement the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision last year against anti-LGBTQ discrimination.
“This case is about two federal agencies changing law, which is Congress’ exclusive prerogative,” Slatery said in a statement. “The agencies simply do not have that authority. But that has not stopped them from trying.”
The 38-page complaint contends the Department of Education and EEOC went too far with its guidance to schools and employers on the Supreme Court’s decision in Bostock v. Clayton County, which determined anti-LGBTQ discrimination is a form of sex discrimination, thus illegal under the Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
“This recent guidance from the Department and the EEOC concerns issues of enormous importance to the States, employers, educational institutions, employees, students, and other individual citizens,” the lawsuit says. “The guidance purports to resolve highly controversial and localized issues such as whether employers and schools may maintain sex-separated showers and locker rooms, whether schools must allow biological males to compete on female athletic teams, and whether individuals may be compelled to use another person’s preferred pronouns. But the agencies have no authority to resolve those sensitive questions, let alone to do so by executive fiat without providing any opportunity for public participation.”
The Department of Education issued a “fact sheet” indicating schools are required to allow transgender kids to compete in sports consistent with their gender identity under Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, while the EEOC chair issued a “technical assistance document” instructing employers to allow transgender people to use restrooms and locker rooms consistent with their gender identity, as well as adhere to a dress code on that basis.
The lawsuit calls on the court to declare the guidance invalid and unlawful and to prohibit the U.S. government from enforcing it based on multiple counts, including violation of the Administrative Procedure Act.
States joining Tennessee in filing the lawsuit are Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota and West Virginia.
