Keystone board joins in federal law suit on rest rooms

The Keystone Academy board of directors voted unanimously June 23 to defend its students’ privacy and defend local control over operations of the school specifically on transgender issues.
Board members agreed to alert the Alliance Defending Freedom group that it will join it in a federal law suit to defend local control.
Alliance Defending Freedom is a non-profit law firm and does not charge for its services.
“Nor do you place your federal funding at risk by joining this lawsuit,” Senior Counsel Jeremy D. Tedesco wrote in a June 15 letter seeking the board’s support for the law suit.
“Title IX (which bans discrimination by sex in schools) allows school districts to have their day in court to explain why having policies and practices that protect student privacy by maintaining sex-specific facilities do not violate Title IX.
“In fact, the White House recently announced in regard to the North Carolina law suit over the states’ Title IX funding that the ‘administration will not take action to withhold funding while this enforcement process is playing out in the courts,’” Tedesco wrote.
The law suit is in response to the May 13 “Dear Colleague” letter issued to all school districts by the U.S. Departments of Education and Justice claiming that Title IX requires school districts to treat students consistent with their gender identity, including allowing students to access locker rooms, restrooms, and similar facilities of the opposite sex.
This would allow a male student who asserts that he is female to immediately gain access to girls’ locker rooms and restrooms, and vice versa.
The letter puts state and local officials and higher-education institutions on notice that they risk losing federal education aid if they limit students to areas or teams based on their gender assigned at birth.
Tedesco said the “Dear Colleague” letter is wrong. He said, “The advice conflicts with Title IX and the rulings of several federal and state courts and it violates your students’ constitutional right to privacy.”
Tedesco cited parts of Title IX rule that authorizes schools to maintain separate locker rooms and restrooms on the basis of biological sex, without placing federal funding at risk.
He said five out of six courts have ruled that it does not violate Title IX to maintain separate restrooms and locker rooms on the basis of sex – and the one outlier case is currently being appealed.
Attorneys General in West Virginia, Arizona, Kansas, Nebraska, Texas, Utah, Mississippi, and South Carolina have determined that sex-specific facilities do not violate Title IX.
The Michigan Department of Education started working on a rule for state school districts to comply with the “Dear Colleague” letter and gave the public 15 days to respond, said Keystone board president Vesta Losen, who brought the issue to the board for discussion and possible action.
Losen said the public was so upset that the Michigan Department of Education gave 30 more days for public response.
Losen said the Michigan Attorney General has declared the Department of Education’s idea “hogwash.”
“How can the Michigan Department of Education make a law without legislation? I would like our board to take a stand,” Losen said.
She said there is a difference between sex and gender.
She said a statement in Tedesco’s letter really spoke to her: “Your students have a constitutional right of privacy and you have a duty to protect it.”
Board Treasurer Carol Manley said she agreed that the board needed to take a stand.
Losen said she put in a call to J.C. Huizenga, who started National Heritage Academies, leaving him a message that he had 80 schools and asking what is he going to do about this transgender restroom issue? Keystone is a NHA school.
Losen said within a few minutes Huizenga called her back and said they would try to change the emerging requirements, but, “In the end we follow the law. That’s what we do.”
He suggested transgender students could use the staff restrooms and Losen said because of a Virginia case they can’t do that because it makes the students more identifiable.
“I’m even more concerned,” said Losen. “In college it’s bad and in the younger students, it’s more than bad.”
In his letter Tedesco said this “Dear Colleague” letter is “yet another example of the federal government dictating policy to local schools and threatening to strip away vital funding that your students, teachers, and schools need. Don’t be bullied into submission.”
Van Buren Public Schools
Interim School Supt. Diane Kullis at the Van Buren Public Schools confirmed that the district did receive the letter from the federal government on the subject. She said VB School Board is going to turn the transgender issue over to the new superintendent it hired once he is on board after July 1.
Supt. Kullis said the issue causes personal problems for her and other grandparents who take their young grandchildren out shopping or to public events and have to find safe restrooms for them. She said she has to plan the route with proper restrooms before she heads off with her grandchildren.
Kullis said at the recent BHS graduation ceremonies at Eastern Michigan University she saw the non-gender restrooms clearly marked at the college.