A Blue Wall Against Bias, a Red Attack on Academic Freedom
Leading Off: States are taking sharply different stances. Democratic states are standing up to Trump. Republican officials impose blunt bigotry. The top story lines for the week.
by Assigned Media
Blue state attorneys general have been a bulwark against the administration’s sweeping efforts to tie federal health, education, and research funding to Donald Trump’s bigoted gender ideology that seeks to deny the existence of trans people and impose unscientific definitions of sex.
A coalition of 12 attorneys general led by Letitia James of New York filed suit last week against the Health and Human Services Department’s unilateral threat to terminate grants, demand repayment of past funding and pursue civil or criminal penalties against states or institutions that don’t comply with his edict.
“The federal government is trying to force states to choose between their values and the vital funding their residents depend on,” James said in a statement. “This policy threatens health care for families, life-saving research and education programs that help young people thrive in favor of denying the dignity and existence of transgender people. New York will not abandon our values, our laws, and above all, our residents.”
Capitulation to Trump, she added, would “have far-reaching and potentially dangerous consequences across a vast spectrum of health care and social services.“
The policy being pushed by the Health and Human Services Department, run by the anti-science zealot Robert Kennedy, would affect states, public universities, health agencies, hospitals, and other recipients of federal funds. It demands they certify compliance with Title IX rules that have been unilaterally rewritten to exclude trans people, or face retaliatory action.
The states joining with New York in the lawsuit are California, Colorado, Delaware, Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington. They have all been part of previous joint actions against the federal government in defense of transgender Americans.
In her statement, James said the administration’s effort “violates the U.S. Constitution by overriding Congress’ power of the purse, breaks federal law by attaching vague and retroactive conditions to funding, and violates the Administrative Procedure Act by imposing a major policy change without notice or explanation.”
These policies would directly contradict laws in many states that provide protections for trans people, decades of court opinions and settled federal guidance recognizing that Title IX protects from discrimination – not promote it.
The University of Arkansas School of Law abruptly withdrew its appointment of its new dean late last week after Republican lawmakers objected to her having previously signed an amicus brief in a case challenging laws barring trans inclusion in sports.
Emily Suski, a South Carolina attorney, professor and expert in Title IX law, had been hired just this month after a two-year-long search by the law school, which had praised her in a press release announcing the appointment as “accomplished scholar” with “extensive experience in leadership roles in legal education and practice.”
Suski was among 17 leading scholars who signed on to an amicus brief, filed in November, in the case of state laws in Idaho and West Virginia that ban trans athletes. The case is pending before the Supreme Court. The scholars argued that students have a right under Title IX to be free from discrimination in school athletics and must be afforded equal athletic opportunity.
Leading academic scholars routinely join amicus briefs in cases that have far-reaching consequences.
Republicans who suddenly objected to Suski’s appointment were blunt in their bias and their unvarnished intrusion on academic freedom. ”There’s no way the people of Arkansas want somebody running and educating our next generation of lawyers and judges [to be] someone that doesn’t understand the difference between a man and a woman,” said one, Senate President Bart Hester.
Continuing its war against the state of Maine over trans athletes, the Trump administration has launched an investigation into a school district over a trans youth participating on a cheerleading team. This action comes as part of a larger series of investigations that the Department of Education has launched nationwide, predominantly into school systems in blue states.
State law in Maine protects transgender athletes from discrimination with the Maine Human Rights Act, which, among other protections, allows participation in sports based on gender identity.
However, even if that were not the case, the superintendent of the district, Michael Hammer, explained that the team was not going against policies as defined by the Trump regime, saying, “It’s a co-ed cheering team. Boys can join, girls can join. No one lost a place on the team because a transgender student joined.”
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