The regime has issued a rule mandating public schools that want to receive their rightful share of school lunch funding -- remembering, of course, that the federal government is funded from taxes it confiscates from citizens -- follow new 'woke' gender identity rules.
In May, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) issued a notice that state and local agencies, program operators, and sponsors receiving funding from the agency’s Food and Nutrition Service must update their policies to include new protections related to sexual orientation and gender identity.
This, despite the fact that all American kids, regardless of any identifier -- age, sex, religion, whatever -- are already considered equal and therefore protected under existing statutes and the Constitution. So all this rule does is convey special outsized protections for a tiny fraction of the country's public school population.
The rule has led 22 state attorneys general to file suit against the regime claiming that it does not have the constitutional or rulemaking authority to deny this funding, especially after Congress has appropriated it.
“The Department’s Memoranda and Final Rule concern highly controversial and localized issues of enormous importance to the States, their subdivisions, affiliates, and citizens. The Department has no power to settle such issues, let alone by executive fiat without providing any opportunity for public comment,” the lawsuit says.
Schools and other groups that get federal funding for meals have to update their policies and signage that 'prohibits discrimination' based on sexual orientation and gender identity, while also pledging to investigate any complaints of discrimination against such individuals to the regime's satisfaction -- though again, it is already unconstitutional and illegal to discriminate on those grounds.
But it gets worse, The Epoch Times notes further:
The USDA issued a fact sheet with examples of what would be considered discrimination.
Under the new directive, schools that require students to use the bathroom corresponding to their biological sex would be in violation of the policy, as well as schools that prevent biological males from joining girls’ sports teams.
Failing to use a student’s preferred pronouns would also be considered a violation and would warrant an investigation, according to the fact sheet.
Translated, the Biden/Obama regime would deny school lunches to kids who failed to, or refuse to, call biological males by male-oriented pronouns, and vice-versa for girls, or if they object to getting undressed or using the bathroom with a member of the opposite sex present.
The states participating in the lawsuit are Tennessee, Indiana, Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Georgia, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, Virginia, and West Virginia, The Epoch Times reported. The state AGs assert that the regime issued the rule in violation of rules outlined in the Administrative Procedures Act, specifically, the section that requires federal agencies to conduct a public comment period when issuing major rule changes.
In a written statement regarding the lawsuit, Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita blasted the White House for injecting politics into school food programs.
“We all know the Biden administration is dead-set on imposing an extreme left-wing agenda on Americans nationwide,” he said. “But they’ve reached a new level of shamelessness with this ploy of holding up food assistance for low-income kids unless schools do the Left’s bidding.”
American taxpayers fund programs that provide school lunches to around 30 million students annually. The legal action is co-led by Tennessee Attorney General Herbert H. Slatery III.
“We are fighting for Hoosier common sense and the rule of law wherever they come under challenge,” Rokita said. “And we will continue doing the work that the people of Indiana elected us to do.”
This lunacy must end.
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