rojo wrote:
Huge news. The AP has the story.
Hopefully this puts an end to the madness in all 18 states.
"Connecticut is one of 18 states, along with Washington, D.C., that allow transgender high school athletes to compete without restrictions, according to Transathlete.com."
The interesting thing is that local authorities appear to not be backing down citing state law so the local school district may lose all federal funding.
I think that many people are under a serious misapprenhension about the significance and legal effects and implications of this letter from the Office of Civil RIghts (OCR) in the Department of Education.
It's important to understand the procedural history. These girls (through a representative) filed a complaint wth the OCR, which investigated the matter, concluded that these school districts had violated TItle IX (or regulations promulgated thereunder), and told the school districts that they had ninety days to negotiate and resolve this matter. The school districts responded, in effect, that they didn't need ninety days; the matter wasn't going to get resolved through negotiations. The schools districts said they were following state law and weren't violating Title IX. The OCR concluded that an impasse in the matter had been reached, and it intended to initiate administrative proceedings or refer the case to the Department of Justice for judicial proceedings if things didn't get resolved within twenty days.
That's pretty much it. The lawyer for the girls says, "Around the nation, districts are going to want to be reading this, because it does have legal implications,” since it's “a first decision from the agency charged with enforcing Title IX addressing the question of whether males on the playing field or on the track are depriving girls of opportunities consistent with Title IX.” An ACLU lawyer says, “All that today’s finding represents is yet another attack from the Trump administration on transgender students." But neither lawyer is suggesting that this letter resolves anything, or that any factual findings or legal conclusions expressed in the letter are binding on any of the school districts or anyone else. The girls' lawyer expressed his hope that the federal court in an ongoing case might take the letter into consideration, and perhaps the court might give some weight to the letter under case law (now controversial) regarding deference to a federal agency's interpretation of a governing statute or regulations promulgated thereunder, but even that seems highly uncertain in this particular procedural posture.
Regardless of anyone's views about whether it seems sensible to allow certain individuals to compete as girls, questions about whether federal law -- specifically, Title IX -- mandates the exclusion of those individuals from competition still remain, and seem unlikely to go away quickly where, as here, state law has been interpreted to compel a different result. So far, I haven't seen much (if any) discussion of those questions on this message board.