Eleven states, led by Texas, are suing the Obama administration over a new policy saying public schools must let transgender students use the bathroom of their choice—calling the directive “a massive social experiment” running roughshod over “common-sense policies,” according to the complaint.
In announcing the lawsuit on Wednesday, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said the case is about “defending the Constitution’’ from an effort by the Obama administration to redefine anti discrimination laws to cover transgender bathroom rights in schools.
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Mr. Paxton said he was willing to fight the case “all the way to the Supreme Court if we have to.’’
In 2014, the Justice Department announced it considered discrimination against transgender people to be barred under federal laws preventing discrimination based on sex. The Obama administration has also pointed to a recent federal appeals court ruling in Richmond, Va. that buttressed that view.
The federal government, Mr. Paxton said, “didn’t follow the proper procedures’’ in issuing the guidelines to schools. “This isn’t an interpretive case of law, this is a rewrite of law,’’ he said.
The Justice Department didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
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This article was originally published on Marketwatch.
