States’ Rights and Public Schools 1

The 10th Amendment to the US Constitution states the following:

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

My paraphrase: Certain rights and responsibilities are granted to the Federal government, and the rest are left up to the individual states.

I’m not a legal scholar so I can’t opine on all the details of what this Amendment exactly means and its legal ramifications. And that’s not the entire gist of this post.

2 weeks to the day that I wrote “Boycotting Fear” I read rumblings of a letter/statement/suggestion/”whatever you want to call it” the Obama administration would be releasing the following day.

Sure enough, they did. You can read the exact text here. The stated purpose of this statement is to prevent discrimination against transgender students and clear up some issues regarding Title IX.

However one of the big sticking points is that any student can be allowed to use the bathroom/facilities aligned with their gender identity. See below.

…and access sex-segregated facilities consistent with their gender identity.

I’ll state what I’ve said a bunch of times before. I have absolutely nothing but love for transgendered people. This really isn’t about being transgender at all.

It’s about putting student’s privacy at risk. It’s especially about putting high school girls at risk by (as I read the instructions) allowing any boy that claims to be transgender in their facilities, which appears to not be limited to just bathrooms.

It’s also about the Federal government overreaching. Now, some will say that the schools receive federal funds so they have to play by the Federal government’s rules. And I guess that is the pickle the schools find themselves in. My guess is our founding fathers never had plans for the Federal government to have such a control on education and that, like a whole host of other issues, should have been left up to each state as it saw fit.

But that’s not the world we live in now. We live in a world where the President can make a move like this, which doesn’t have the force of law behind it, but does apparently have the force of withholding Federal funds and the potential for litigation.

It seems to me like there have to be better solutions to these issues. Exactly what I’m not entirely sure, but they must be out there.

What do you think?

One comment on “States’ Rights and Public Schools

  1. Reply Vicki May 14,2016 2:33 pm

    It is more than Locker Rooms, Showers and Public Restrooms that are being overtaken. Our Legislative process is being by-passed. This is not just part of the War On Women but also a War being waged against the Balance of Powers and, as you indicate, our Constitution!!!

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