ACLU Letter to Texas School Districts Clarifies Transgender Student Protections

HOUSTON – Today, the ACLU of Texas issued a letter to Texas school districts outlining their ongoing legal responsibility to provide transgender students access to educational opportunities and school facilities on the same basis as all other students. Yesterday, the State of Texas issued its own “guidance” letter to Texas schools regarding the federal government’s May 13 guidance.

The following may be attributed to Rebecca L. Robertson, legal and policy director of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Texas:

“We value Texas educators, whose top priority is the academic success of their students and we think those educators deserve better legal advice than they got from Attorney General Ken Paxton. To be clear, public schools are not party to the lawsuit filed by the State of Texas in federal court in Wichita Falls and they aren’t subject to the preliminary injunction that prevents the Obama administration from acting on its Guidance regarding Title IX. School districts in Texas that already have inclusive policies to protect their transgender students are free to enforce them. School districts considering such policies are free to adopt them. School districts that do not have appropriate policies under Title IX risk being sued by transgender students who experience discrimination.”

A copy of the ACLU of Texas letter on Transgender Student Guidance is available here:
https://www.aclutx.org/sites/default/files/8_26_16_aclutx_trangender_student_guidance.pdf