Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announced a lawsuit filed on Wednesday against the Obama Administration over Department of Education’s bathroom and dressing room policies. Texas was joined by thirteen other states in filing the suit.
The AG asked the court to place an injunction on the Department of Justice, Department of Education and other federal agencies to stop them from requiring public schools and employers to open up “intimate areas” like bathrooms, locker rooms and changing areas to both sexes, a statement from the Office of the Texas Attorney General obtained by Breitbart Texas Wednesday afternoon revealed.
“The nation’s schools, and every place of employment, are now in the crosshairs of the Obama Administration, which maintains it will punish those who do not comply with its orders,” Attorney General Paxton said in the written statement. “Schools are facing the potential loss of funding for simply exercising the authority to implement the policies that best protect their students. Every employer is now being threatened for not bowing to anyone that identifies as the opposite sex.”
General Paxton said the Obama Administration is attempting to equate the Congressionally-legislated word “sex” with “gender identity” in multiple federal laws. This conflation of the terms could force schools and businesses across the country to open up their gender specific facilities to people of both sexes based upon their gender identification.
Texas is joined in the lawsuit by the states of Alabama, Arizona, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Utah, West Virginia and Wisconsin.
In May, Breitbart Texas’ Lana Shadwick reported the Texas AG joined with parents in front of a Fort Worth Independent School District facility to protest Superintendent Dr. Kent Paredes Schribner’s unilateral decision to allow student of the opposite sex to use school facilities based upon their gender identity of the moment. Paxton said “We must protect our children. They deserve a safe place to receive an education.”
Last week General Paxton issued an Attorney General’s Opinion on the issue following a request from Lt. Governor Dan Patrick. Breitbart Texas’ Merrill Hope wrote:
Essentially, Paxton said the district violated state law by not following protocol. They did not go through the school board. He indicated that ‘transition’ portions of the transgender policies to ‘work closely with the student’ to determine to what extent, if any, a parent will be involved in the student’s transitioning suggests that employees could, pursuant to these restrictions, encourage some children to withhold information from a parent’ exceeds what the policy actually addressed.
The Lt. Governor responded, “In light of this Attorney General opinion, and the overwhelming opposition to these policies, I once again call upon Superintendent Scribner to pull down his illegal policies. If he does not, I call upon him to tender his resignation.”
The motion for the injunction is attached below.
Bob Price serves as associate editor and senior political news contributor for Breitbart Texas. He is a founding member of the Breitbart Texas team. Follow him on Twitter @BobPriceBBTX.
Plaintiffs Application for Preliminary Injunction FM