Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed an Amicus brief on August 31st in asking for the courts to put the House Bill 2 (HB2) suit on hold.
Texas is joined by 10 other state attorneys general and two governors in the filing. The Amicus specifically asks U.S. District Court Judge Thomas Schroeder to put the U.S. Justice Department’s current challenge to HB2 on hold while other related cases move forward.
This filing comes in the wake of Judge Schroeder allowing for three transgender individuals to use the facilities of their choice within the University of North Carolina system.
The Amicus cites an injunction issued on August 21st, 2016 by Texas and several other states brought against the Obama administration’s pro-transgender guidelines as the main reason for Judge Schroeder to issue a stay. The injunction was meant to be applied nationwide.
The third point of the Texas Amicus hits upon the previous accommodations already present in Title IX as noted in the dissenting opinion from the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals:
Third, the Injunction confirms that the text, structure, and legislative history of Title IX and its implementing regulations (34 C.F.R. §§ 106.32, 106.33, 106.61) plainly allow the separation of intimate areas on the basis of “biological and anatomical differences between male and female students as determined at their birth.” Injunction at 31. Additionally, the Injunction concludes that the Title IX regulation primarily at issue (34 C.F.R. § 106.33) is not ambiguous and, thus, no deference is warranted to the various federal agency interpretations of those regulations.
Id. at 30–33
Read:
LL1885 