A central Ohio school district facing a
loss of federal funding if it fails to allow a transgender student to
use the bathroom of her choice has sued the federal government.
The Highland Local School District
claims in its lawsuit that the U.S. Department of Education had given
the district until June 28 to comply or risk losing more than $1
million in annual federal funding.
The Christian conservative group
Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) is representing the school district
in the action.
ADF lawyers argue that the Obama
administration is attempting to rewrite federal law by expanding the
definition of sex under Title IX to include transgender people.
According to The
Columbus Dispatch, the guardian of the transgender student
filed a civil rights complaint against the district in 2013.
The district argues in its lawsuit that
the transgender student has “access to alternate private
facilities.” Highland said that it had separated the student to
“protect the dignity and privacy rights of all students.”
ADF senior lawyer Jim Campbell
criticized the Obama administration in a statement. “The
Department of Education is attempting to strong-arm Highland into
complying with a lawless demand to open its single-sex overnight
accommodations, locker rooms, showers and restrooms to students of
the opposite sex.”
The issue of transgender bathroom use
grabbed national headlines in March after North Carolina became the
first state in the nation to prohibit transgender people from using
the bathroom of their choice in government buildings, including
schools.