California sues to prevent Trump from cutting funding over transgender athletes
The suit by Attorney General Rob Bonta's office on behalf of state education officials and Gov. Gavin Newsom's administration was triggered by last week's threat from President Donald Trump to withhold all federal aid to public schools in the state — more than $8 billion a year — after a transgender athete, AB Hernandez of Jurupa Valley High School, won two events at the state high school track meet.
Harmeet Dhillon, the top civil rights official in Trump's Justice Department, has also told California school districts that they would forfeit federal funding unless they defied an order by the California Interscholastic Federation to allow students to join teams that corresponded with their gender identity.
'The demand that (school districts) discriminate against students on the basis of sex-based characteristics and gender identity … invites discrimination, harassment, and hostility into educational programs and activities, which undermine the social and emotional well-being of all students (and especially the well-being of transgender students),' the state's lawyers said in a suit filed in federal court in San Francisco.
Trump issued an executive order on Jan. 20, his first day in office, declaring a government policy to 'recognize only two sexes, male and female,' as determined at birth. In addition to renewing efforts from his first administration to exclude trans athletes from girls' and women's sports and ban trans soldiers from the U.S. military, he has cut off federal funding for transgender health care.
Dhillon, who practiced law in San Francisco before joining the Trump administration, has described transgender females as 'men pretending to be women.'
The California Interscholastic Federation, which oversees sports competition in California public schools, implemented a state law in 2013 with an official policy declaring that students 'should have the opportunity to participate in CIF activities in a manner that is consistent with their gender identity.'
Dhillon's June 2 letter to school districts asserted that the CIF policy would 'allow male participation in girls' interscholastic activities,' in violation of the U.S. Constitution's ban on sex discrimination. But the state's lawsuit, filed against the U.S. Justice Department, said it was Dhillon who was advocating discrimination.
'Prevailing law holds that (Dhillon's) demand — namely, for schools to categorically ban transgender students from participating in athletic programs in accordance with their gender identity — violates the Equal Protection Clause,' the 14th Amendment's ban on government policies that discriminate based on race, ethnicity or gender. Deputy Attorney General Edward Nugent wrote in the court filing.
He cited recent court rulings, including a decision by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals last September that an Arizona law banning transgender girls and women from female sports teams in schools and colleges was 'the essence of discrimination.' The Supreme Court, however, has not yet ruled on a case raising similar issues, a challenge to laws in Tennessee and other states that prohibit hormone treatments and other gender-affirming care for minors who identify as transgender.
Nugent said Congress, whose laws govern Dhillon's Justice Department, has never authorized the department to issue a demand like Dhillon's letter to California schools. And he said medical studies show that transgender teenagers are 'at far higher risk of suicide' than other youths, particularly when their gender identity is denied.
'Athletics allow students to gain confidence, develop important social and emotional skills, build social connections, and experience the camaraderie of being on a team,' the state's lawsuit said. 'Being able to live consistent with one's gender identity is critical to one's health and well-being,' and that identity 'cannot be changed by medical, psychological or social intervention.'
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