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House Co-Sponsorship Memoranda
House of Representatives
Session of 2015 - 2016
Regular Session
MEMORANDUM
| Posted: | June 13, 2016 12:55 PM |
|---|---|
| From: | Representative Daryl D. Metcalfe |
| To: | All House members |
| Subject: | Request for rescission of the "Dear Colleague" letter issued by the US Department of Education and the US Department of Justice |
| In the near future, I plan to introduce a resolution which calls on President Obama to rescind the May 13, 2016 “Dear Colleague” letter issued jointly by the United States Department of Education and the United States Department of Justice regarding the use of bathrooms by transgender students in public schools and calling on Governor Wolf to reject the policy outlined in the “Dear Colleague” letter. The issue of whether Title IX protects a student’s gender identity has already been decided by a federal court in Pennsylvania. Title IX provides that educational programs cannot discriminate “on the basis of sex.” In Johnson v. Univ. of Pittsburgh Com. Sys. of Higher Education, the federal court for the Western District Court of Pennsylvania found that Title IX’s language did not provide a basis for a transgender status claim. The Court held that “Title IX and its implementing regulations clearly permit schools to provide students with certain sex-segregated spaces, including bathroom and locker room facilities, to perform certain private activities and bodily functions consistent with the individual’s birth sex” (emphasis added). Relying on this rationale, the Court upheld the University of Pittsburgh’s policy of separating bathrooms and locker rooms on the basis of birth sex under Title IX and the United States Constitution. An appeal of this decision was dismissed by the Third Circuit Court of Appeals on March 30, 2016. The “Dear Colleague” letter is an unconstitutional intrusion by the federal government into an area that should be and is legally handled locally by school districts who best know their students and parents. At its core, the letter sacrifices the fundamental privacy rights associated with intimate bodily functions for millions of school students. Plainly, this directive will allow men to go into legally sex-separated bathrooms with young girls. The parents of these young girls are rightly concerned about President Obama’s policy and its implications for their daughters’ safety. It is the duty of Congress on a federal level and the Pennsylvania General Assembly on a state level to address any changes in statutory law. The letter’s threat to federal funding for public schools which do not comply with this unsupported directive is a deliberate attempt to circumvent the Constitutional legislative process and flies in the face of the very idea of a Constitutional Republic as envisioned by this country’s founders. Art. I, § 1 of the United States Constitution (“All legislative Powers…shall be vested in a Congress of the United States.”). Please join me in urging President Obama to rescind the “Dear Colleague” letter and Governor Wolf to reject the policy laid out in the same. If you have any questions please contact Gina Buffington at gbuffing@pahousegop.com or 717-783-1707. |