Trump Pulls Federal Protections for Transgender Students
May 12, 2017
Trump Pulls Federal Protections for Transgender Students
Wednesday night, the Trump administration withdrew protections for transgender students
that let them use bathrooms and facilities in public schools that correspond with their gender
identities.
The Obama administration enforced the protections last May after the departments of
Education and Justice issued joint guidance directing schools to let transgender students use
facilities that correspond with their gender identities.
The question of how to address this debate opened a rift inside the Trump administration,
pitting Education Secretary Betsy DeVos against Attorney General Jeff Sessions.
Mr. Sessions, who has opposed expanding gay, lesbian and transgender rights, pushed Ms.
DeVos to relent. After getting nowhere, he took his objections to the White House because he
could not go forward without her consent. Mr. Trump sided with his attorney general and told
DeVos that he wanted her to drop her opposition. And DeVos, faced with the alternative of
resigning or defying the president, agreed to go along.
Ms. DeVos’s said she considered it a “moral obligation” for every school in America to protect
all students from discrimination, bullying and harassment.
The Education Secretary said that she had directed the Education Department’s Office for Civil
Rights to investigate any claims of such treatment “against those who are most vulnerable in
our schools,” but also argued that bathroom access was not a federal matter.
LGBT rights supporters made their stands clear as they held protests outside the White House.
Individual schools will remain free to let trans students use the bathroom of the gender they
identify with, and the effect of the administration’s decision will not be immediate because a
federal court had already issued a nationwide injunction barring enforcement of Obama’s
order.