The state of California has filed a lawsuit against the Trump Department of Justice over the administration’s order to block transgender athletes from competing in women’s sports.
The state argued that the Justice Department has “no right to make such a demand,” saying it has “no authority which would allow them to issue or enforce the Certification Demand Letter.” Per Fox News:
California defended the laws that have come into question, which allow athletes to participate in sports “consistent with” their gender identity and doesn’t violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
The lawsuit said the state’s bylaws “do not classify or discriminate based on ’biological sex,’ do not require schools to ‘depriv[e] [cisgender] female students of athletic opportunities and benefits on the basis of their sex,’ and do not effectuate any differential treatment on the basis of sex.
“Instead, allowing athletic participation consistent with students’ gender identity is substantially related to the important government interests of affording all students the benefits of an inclusive school environment, including participation in school sports, and preventing the serious harms that transgender students would suffer from a discriminatory, exclusionary policy,” the lawsuit added.
As previously reported in February, the president signed an executive order to “rewrite federal Title IX education rules to withhold federal funds from schools that allow transgender athletes to play as females.”
Americans also overwhelmingly support keeping men out of women’s sports by a sizable majority that has only grown in recent years, with a recent New York Times/Ipsos poll finding 79 percent of Americans believe trans athletes should not be allowed to participate in women’s athletics.
Last week, Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon said in a letter to California that the state must “certify in writing” by June 9 that it will not follow the California Interscholastic Federation’s (CIF) gender identity rules. The CIF governs public and private high school sports in California and includes a provision in its bylaws that requires schools to recognize gender identity.
“Knowingly depriving female students of athletic opportunities and benefits on the basis of their sex would constitute unconstitutional sex discrimination under the Equal Protection Clause,” Dhillon wrote in the letter.
California Attorney General Rob Bonta said in a statement that the Trump administration has demanded that “schools discriminate against the students in their care and deny their constitutionally protected rights.”
“The President and his Administration are demanding that California school districts break the law and violate the Constitution — or face legal retaliation. They’re demanding that our schools discriminate against the students in their care and deny their constitutionally protected rights,” Bonta said. “As we’ve proven time and again in court, just because the President disagrees with a law, that doesn’t make it any less of one.”
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