You Would Think That This Would Have Been Settled

Once the Maine Supreme Judicial Court ruled that the non-discrimination law covers bathrooms, but Maine’s governor doesn’t want to hear it.

Conflict erupts over how Maine should deal with transgender students
Bangor Daily News
By Beth Brogan, BDN Staff
Posted Feb. 04, 2016

AUGUSTA, Maine — The Maine Human Rights Commission last month issued guidelines for public schools to use when dealing with students who identify as transgender.

Following a 2014 Maine Supreme Judicial Court decision that guaranteed the right of a Maine transgender student to use the school bathroom designed for the gender with which she identified, the commission in October 2015 proposed rule changes to guide school administrators on how to abide by the court’s decision.

But Gov. Paul LePage’s administration did not allow the rights commission, working with the Department of Education, to proceed with the rulemaking process, so the commission instead issued guidelines, outlined in a Jan. 13 memo from MHRC counsel Barbara Archer Hirsch.

What is the governor’s hang-up?

Rep. Mattie Daughtry, D-Brunswick, who serves on the Legislature’s Education Committee, said Wednesday the administration’s decision was “another case of the governor not following the law.”

But Adrienne Bennett, spokeswoman for LePage, said the governor did not authorize the rulemaking because he is waiting for the Legislature to make Maine law clearer.

What does he need cleared up? The Maine Supreme Judicial Court made it very clear, the law covers bathrooms, no ifs, ands, or buts!

“In the wake of the law court’s decision in the Maines case, I think the question of whether students are entitled to use the bathrooms and facilities of the gender with which they identify — I think that’s pretty clear,” Amy Sneirson, the commission’s executive director, said by phone. “But I think a lot of other things are not clear.”

If you remember late last year , Maine Governor LePage supported an effort in federal court in Virginia to challenge the U.S. Department of Education Office of Civil Rights ruling that Title IX covers gender identity under sex discrimination, which many federal courts have ruled that it does cover gender identity.