JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. – Attorney General Chris Koster announced Wednesday that his office will file a friend-of-the-court brief asking the U.S. Supreme Court to review the decision of a federal appeals court involving transgender students’ access to sex-segregated facilities in public schools, such as restrooms, locker rooms and showers.
Koster, also a Democratic candidate for governor, indicated that Missouri intends to disagree with President Obama’s unilateral approach to the issue; affirm that, in Missouri, transgender students must be treated with dignity, fairness and respect, and defend the long-standing Missouri principle of local decision-making and against federal mandates.
Koster, in a prepared statement, cited the case of G.G. v. Gloucester County School Board, in which a transgender high school student argues that school policy requiring students to use the restroom corresponding to the biological sex assigned at birth violates the Constitution and laws of the U.S.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit recently sided with the student, ruling that Title IX requires a public school to permit transgender student to use sex-segregated facilities corresponding to their gender-identity.
“President Obama was wrong to dictate a national mandate so quickly and unilaterally,” Koster said in his statement. “Missouri school districts are capable of treating all students with dignity and respect while addressing sincerely held privacy concerns. We intend to support the ability of Missouri school districts to form lawful policy on this issue at the local level once a common understanding of the requirements of Title IX is reached.”
Koster said his office has been in contact with the lawyers representing the Gloucester County School Board, which released a statement yesterday signaling the district’s intent to file a petition for Supreme Court Review. Koster’s office has informed the school board’s counsel that Missouri will submit an amicus curiae brief urging the Supreme Court to hear the school board’s appeal when they file their petition later this summer.
One lawmaker had already called on Koster to reject the federal edict regarding school treatment of transgender students. State Rep. Mike Moon, R-Ash Grove, submitted a letter to Koster pointing out that Koster had already agreed, citing a St. Louis Post-Dispatch article, that the Obama Administration moved “too quickly and too unilaterally” in this decision.
In his letter to the Attorney General, Moon requests action from Koster’s office, “in defense of Missouri’s vulnerable citizens, specifically school aged children.”
Moon concludes his letter to Koster by imploring him, “to take a leadership position”, and to “oppose the DOE/DOJ policy on transgenderism on behalf of the Missouri citizens, especially her students.”
