Trump officials issue third refusal to help transgender student who has been forced to use the wrong bathroom
US President Donald Trump speaks during a meeting on prison reform in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington, DC, January 11, 2018. / AFP PHOTO / SAUL LOEB (Photo credit should read SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images)
The Education Department has dismissed complaints from transgender students over discrimination against their rights on campus including the right to use their assigned bathroom, a HuffPost report has revealed.
This is the third notice of this type that the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights has issued to a transgender student in the past few months after Trump voted to remove Title IX protections for transgender students.
The protections, which were argued to ensure that there would be no discrimination based on gender in education, were extended by the Obama administration to cover transgender protections.
And the latest complaint dismissal has seen the administration refuse to help a transgender teenager in Texas who has been denied the right to use the right bathroom for two years.
“The Office of Civil Rights (OCR) determined we do not have subject matter jurisdiction over Allegation 1, insomuch as the alleged discriminatory conduct you described does not raise any prohibitive bases under the civil rights laws OCR enforces,” an agency letter dismissing one complaint read, according to the report from Huffington Post.
“This is not surprising, but it does seem to me consistent with the idea that students who are facing discrimination, who really are suffering in their ability to get an education, don’t believe that OCR will protect them,” said Harper Jean Tobin, director of policy at the National Center for Transgender Equality.
The Title IX protections were scrapped by President Trump against the advice of his Education Secretary.
A number of officials within the Education Department penned a letter urging DeVos to maintain the Department’s support for tackling anti-LGBT discrimination when Trump first announced his plans.
