Alabama Officials Criticize Public School Bathroom Directive
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U.S. Representative Martha Roby (R-AL) today responded to the release of a joint directive from the U.S. Justice Department and the U.S Department of Education telling every public school district in the country to allow students to use bathrooms and locker rooms corresponding to their “gender identity” rather than their biological sex.
The eight-page letter instructed school administrators that, when it comes to bathrooms and locker rooms, “A school may provide separate facilities on the basis of sex, but must allow transgender students access to such facilities consistent with their gender identity. A school may not require transgender students to use facilities inconsistent with their gender identity or to use individual-user facilities when other students are not required to do so.”
Roby called this federal guidance “tortuous” and said the Obama Administration is putting the social preferences of a few over the privacy rights of all.
Roby released the following statement in regards to the directive issued by the Obama Administration:
“They have lost their minds. This is a great example of an issue in which we need a lot less government and a lot more common sense. These are children. Eighth grade boys don’t need government-guaranteed access to the sixth grade girls’ bathroom, or vice versa.
“Schools can figure out how to accommodate students’ unique needs on an individual basis without federal bureaucrats’ tortuous redefinition of sex. Moreover, threatening to sue schools or withhold funding if they don’t conform to this backward application of law is an abuse of power that won’t stand. I look forward to hearings that will expose how ridiculous and unworkable such a policy is.”
As a Member of the House Appropriations Committee, Roby serves on the Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services and Education, which has jurisdiction over funding for the U.S. Department of Education, and on the Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice and Science, which has jurisdiction over funding for the U.S. Justice Department.
Roby wasn’t was the only official to have a problem with the directive, as Alabama Attorney General, Luther Strange, also released a statement criticizing the directive.
Strange issued the following statement in response to the Obama Administration’s guidance document that public schools must allow male students to use female bathrooms and locker rooms (and vice versa) or lose federal funding.
“The Obama Administration’s new guidance document is just one more example of the kind of federal overreach that we have come to expect from this White House. School bathroom use is an issue that should be decided by parents, teachers, and principals—not federal bureaucrats. The DOJ guidance document is also wrong on the law. Title IX allows schools to have separate facilities for separate sexes. The law says ‘sex,’ not gender identity. If the Obama Administration tries to enforce this absurd edict, I will work with other Attorneys General to challenge it.”
