The Law Is The Law, Or Is It?

It seems like if you are a conservative you don’t believe in following the law. There have been a number of Supreme Court cases saying you have to provide a safe learning environment and you cannot discriminate, but…

Florida school districts refuse to defend LGBTQ+ kids | Editorial
By Orlando Sentinel Editorial Board
Orlando Sentinel
Dec 21, 2022


Across Florida, support for LGBTQ+ students is crumpling like gift-bag tissue paper, as state education officials demand that school districts erase protections — many just a few years old, adopted after long and sometimes contentious public debate and heartfelt testimony by students and parents pleading that schools be safe for all students.

The changes LGBTQ+ students and families asked for might have seemed radical at first to school board members — the right to be addressed by the gender they identified with, and use appropriate bathroom and locker-room facilities; the right to be protected from bullies; the chance to use texts and read library books that are inclusive of their experience; the assurance that they have access to the same counseling services and confidentiality that protect heterosexual students.

Yet in district after the district, Floridians saw compassion and dignity win. Even the most conservative school districts — places like deep-red Flagler County — adopted protections to ensure that the fundamental rights of LGBTQ+ students weren’t violated.

This morning I wrote about a case involving the Supreme Court case of Bostock v. Clayton County where the Supreme Court, the highest court in the nation, the court all other courts have to follow ruled that Title IX applies to LGBTQ+ people.

But the Florida Department of Education and school boards seem to think that they are above the law!

There’s no doubt that these students are now under determined attack by state leaders. As reported by the Florida Phoenix, the state Department of Education sent out letters last month demanding that 10 school districts across the state amend policies that were too supportive of students’ rights to privacy and respectful treatment. This time, the list of districts includes Alachua, Broward, Brevard, Duval, Hillsborough, Indian River, Leon, Miami-Dade, Palm Beach and the Florida School for the Deaf and the Blind in St. Augustine, which operates as an independent district.

[…]

State officials have been harassing some districts for months over policies related to gender-divergent or non-heterosexual students. That’s a sharp change in and of itself: previously, school districts (which are governed by duly elected school boards) were largely responsible for interpreting and implementing state law on their own.

It’s a shameful display of top-down bigotry, and exactly what many feared would happen after Gov. Ron DeSantis arm-twisted lawmakers into passing the hateful legislation (HB 1557), which incorporates deliberately vague and over-broad language meant to stifle discussion of sexuality at all grade levels. During the session, the bill came to be known as “Don’t Say Gay,” but it’s clear now that the moniker missed the mark. The state is directing much of its ire toward policies intended to protect gender-divergent students — not just classroom discussion, but anti-bullying measures as well. That aligns with DeSantis’ obsessive (and deceptive) insistence that there’s a pervasive, perverted industry flourishing in Florida aimed at “mutilating” very young children. Previously, he and his official communications director insisted that anyone opposed to HB 1577 supported “grooming” small children for sexual abuse.

This is what happened in the 1930s the Brownshirts attacked LGBTQ burning their books, making it a crime to be LGBTQ+. In Russia today they passed anti-LGBTQ+ laws, and other authoritarian governments in eastern Europe they prosecuting us. Now we have a politician who hopes to become president on the backs of trans and LGB children.

The U.S. Department of Education has on their website,

The mission of the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) is to ensure equal access to education and to promote educational excellence through vigorous enforcement of civil rights in our nation's schools. To serve this mission, OCR enforces civil rights laws to protect all students from unlawful discrimination and harassment based on race, color, national origin, sex, disability, and age. This includes students who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, questioning, asexual, intersex, nonbinary, and individuals who identify their sexual orientation or gender identity in other ways (LGBTQI+).

Bullying, harassment, exclusion from school activities, and other forms of discrimination can interfere with LGBTQI+ students’ access to a safe and inclusive school environment. Federal law, however, requires schools to ensure that LGBTQI+ students and other students have equal access to all aspects of a school’s programs and activities.

In the case of Grimm v. Gloucester County School Board the ACLU wrote,

The Supreme Court today declined to hear Grimm v. Gloucester County School Board, allowing lower court decisions in support of transgender students to stand.

The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit have both ruled that the school board violated Title IX and the Equal Protection Clause by prohibiting Grimm from using the same restrooms as other boys and forcing him to use separate restrooms.

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Josh Block, senior staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union LGBTQ & HIV Project, had the following response:

“This is the third time in recent years that the Supreme Court has allowed appeals court decisions in support of transgender students to stand. This is an incredible victory for Gavin and for transgender students around the country. Our work is not yet done, and the ACLU is continuing to fight against anti-trans laws targeting trans youth in states around the country.”

But even with all these court rulings states like Florida and Texas just thumb their noses at the law to further their political agenda.