Moms for Liberty is trying to block gender discrimination regulations at dozens of PA. schools

The right-wing parental rights group, Moms for Liberty, is fighting new Title IX regulations barring discrimination based on gender identity at schools across the nation, including dozens in Pennsylvania.

The right-wing organization Moms for Liberty is attempting to prevent the implementation of new regulations barring discrimination based on gender identity in more than 100 Pennsylvania schools, via a federal lawsuit.

The organization, which bills itself as a “parental rights” group, along with attorneys general in Kansas, Alaska, Utah, and Wyoming, filed a federal lawsuit in May attempting to block the new regulations from being enforced at schools across the country. A judge recently ruled in their favor, ordering that the federal government couldn’t enforce the new protections for LGBTQ students in the four states, and at schools attended by children of Moms for Liberty. The judge allowed the group to submit a long list of schools (which can be updated) across the country where their members have children attending. Dozens of Pennsylvania schools were included on that list.

The new regulations took effect Aug. 1 and expanded the protections offered by Title IX, a 1972 civil rights law that prohibits discrimination based on sex in schools that receive federal funding. The new regulations specify that sex-based discrimination includes any discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity.

The new regulations also expand protections for pregnant and breastfeeding students and requires schools to investigate verbal or informal complaints of discrimination. Previously, a complaint had to be written to warrant an investigation.

The rules “build on the legacy of Title IX by clarifying that all our nation’s students can access schools that are safe, welcoming, and respect their rights,” U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona said in an April statement.

What’s behind Moms for Liberty’s case?

Moms for Liberty filed the joint lawsuit in May in U.S. District Court in Kansas. The suit claimed that the new rules barring discrimination based on gender identity would “institutionalize the left-wing fad of transgender ideology in our K-12 system and tie school funding to it.” 

In July, U.S. District Judge John Broomes granted the group’s request for an injunction, saying that the rules elevate “gender identity discrimination over the traditional view of biological sex discrimination that Title IX was intended to address.”

Broomes also barred enforcement of the new regulations in schools attended by children of Moms for Liberty members, a list of which the group submitted to the court. Philadelphia-based law firm Fox Rothschild represents school districts across the commonwealth and has posted this list of the targeted schools on its website. 

The Biden administration has appealed the ruling.

What does this mean for Pa. schools?

Fortunately, the impact of the Moms for Liberty list may be limited in Pennsylvania. State laws  already prohibit discrimination based on gender identity in schools. The state’s regulations define sex discrimination as including “pregnancy, sex assigned at birth, gender, including a person’s gender identity or gender expression, affectional or sexual orientation, including heterosexuality, homosexuality, bisexuality and asexuality, differences of sex development, variations of sex characteristics or other intersex characteristics.”

Students at the commonwealth schools on the Moms for Liberty list still have a right to file discrimination complaints through the state’s Human Relations Commission. 

The Pennsylvania Department of Education has yet to issue clarification surrounding the court ruling as it pertains to the state’s schools, and what, if anything, happens now.