Obama’s crusade to push fluid “gender identity” in schools, has caused one Texas superintendent to respond, “I got news for President Barack Obama. He ain’t my president and he can’t tell me what to do. That letter is going straight to the paper shredder.”
The Port Neches-Groves ISD Superintendent, Dr. Rodney Cavness, was responding to the Obama Administration’s announcement, and to the anticipated receipt of a letter from his administration, saying that school districts must allow their students to use the restroom that suits their “gender identify.”
The implication from the federal government for schools that do not comply with the federal policy – risk losing federal funding and lawsuits.
Cavness told 12News anchor Kevin Steele:
I got news for President Barack Obama. He ain’t my President and he can’t tell me what to do. That letter is going straight to the paper shredder. I have five daughters myself and I have 2,500 girls in my protection. Their moms and dads expect me to protect them. And that is what I am going to do. Now I don’t want them bullied … but there are accommodations that can be made short of this. He is destroying the very fiber of this country. He is not a leader. He is a failure.
Referring to those in bathrooms, he told 12News, “I would say about molesters — 99.9% certainly aren’t.”
The Obama Adminstration’s announcement on Friday, May 13, drew fiery responses from other leaders in Texas, including the Lone Star State’s goveror. Governor Greg Abbott tweeted:
I announced today that Texas is fighting this. Obama can’t rewrite the Civil Rights Act. He’s not a King. #tcot https://t.co/vDgfQPZXjR
— Greg Abbott (@GregAbbott_TX) May 13, 2016
Abbott later added:
The Founders gave us a fix for this transgender mixup. It’s a Convention of States under Article V. #tcot #PJNET https://t.co/nxXfeNa1A4
— Greg Abbott (@GregAbbott_TX) May 15, 2016
As reported in January by Breitbart Texas, Abbott asked Texas to join other states in calling for an Article V Convention of the States to write new amendments to the U.S. Constitution. He says his 100-page “Texas Plan” “fixes this government run amok” and “returns lawmaking to the process enshrined in the Constitution.” Abbott’s Texas Plan is attached to the Breitbart Texas article and discusses in detail the history of, and the problem with, an unchecked balance of power, and with faceless bureaucrats making rules and public policy.
The Attorney General of Texas, Ken Paxton, also reacted strongly to the Obama administration’s announcement. In a statement obtained by Breitbart Texas, Paxton warned, “Once again, the Obama Administration has overstepped its constitutional bounds to meddle in the affairs of state and local government. Today’s announcement seeking to unilaterally redefine and expand federal law must be challenged. If President Obama thinks he can bully Texas schools into allowing men to have open access to girls in bathrooms, he better prepare for yet another legal fight.”
As reported by Breitbart Texas on May 10, Paxton also fired off a letter to the president of the Fort Worth Independent School District (ISD) saying he has a “strong concern” that the school district’s “Transgender Student Guidelines” violates parents rights to information. He also said the policies are motivated by a misguided view of federal law. The school district had announced a new policy consistent with progressive’s concept of gender fluidity that they term “gender identity.”
Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick responded that Texas “will not yield to blackmail from the President of the United States,” reported Breitbart Texas on Friday.
Although this is the latest by the federal government in pushing a gender fluidity public policy directive, Breitbart News’ Neil Munro reported on May 9 that Attorney General Janet Lynch argued that anyone’s personal choice of male or female “gender identity,” is more important than others’ right to sexual privacy in public bathrooms or school locker rooms.
The Justice Department filed a lawsuit on May 9 in federal court in North Carolina asking that the state be declared to be violating the 1964 Civil Rights Act by enacting a sexual privacy bill that delineates when people can use bathrooms of the other sex. Governor Pat McCrory called the litigation “massive executive branch overreach.” He asked the U.S. Congress to intercede.
Breitbart News’ Munro rightly labeled the government’s lawsuit an “unprecedented federal power-grab over the nation’s civic culture.” He reported that according to a 2010 census, “a tiny majority,” specifically as few as one in every 2,400 Americans, want to live and dress like members of the opposite sex.
Texas is no stranger to suing, and in leading the states in suing, President Obama and the federal government. Governor Abbott, when he was Texas’ Attorney General, sued the president and his administation 31 times. One of these actions lead a coalition of 26 states in a lawsuit over the Obama Administration’s executive order on amnesty.
Lana Shadwick is a writer and legal analyst for Breitbart Texas. She has served as a prosecutor and associate judge in Texas. Follow her on Twitter @LanaShadwick2
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