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Douglas County School District. (Photo: DCSD)

ACLU NV Threatens Lawsuit Against Douglas County School District

Lawsuit expected if Board of Trustees adopts policy to protect gender-specific sports and spaces from transgender students

By Megan Barth, May 11, 2023 6:50 am

The Globe obtained a letter (see below) sent to the Douglas County School District Board of Trustees from the ACLU Nevada that threatens the district with a lawsuit if the Board adopts a transgender student policy that protect sports, locker rooms, and bathrooms from biological males who identify as females or biological women who identify as males.

The ACLU NV sent the letter on May 3rd, prior to the school board publishing agenda item 19 for the upcoming Board meeting on May 16th.

Agenda item 19 reads: 

Transgender Student Policy SG-G (Discussion and For Possible Discussion)

Description:  The Board will discuss and take possible action on whether to adopt a policy regarding (1) students who are biologically male at birth and whether they can participate in female sports and use girls’ bathrooms and locker rooms; and (2) students who are biologically female at birth and whether they can participate in male sports and use boys’ bathrooms and locker rooms.

In the letter, the ACLU NV warns:

If these polices and practices are passed by the Board of Trustees, Douglas County School District will be in violation of various regulations promulgated by the Nevada Department of Education, various provisions within the NRS, including NRS 651.050(2)…,Title IX, Section 24 of the Nevada Constitution, and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Policies of this nature do not belong in the State of Nevada… Your obligation as a board is to uphold the regulation of this state and to provide a safe and nurturing educational environment free from bullying and judgement…

Any consideration of those policies will be in direct violation of the law and your duties as a board and will result in litigation.

Female Majority Nevada Legislature, 2019 (Photo: Nevada Leg)

As the Globe reported, the Equal Rights Amendment (SJR8) was passed a second time during a special session of the Nevada legislature and at the height of the pandemic which severely limited public comment or dissent due to pandemic restrictions. At the time, Democratic Senate Majority Leader Nicole Cannizzaro stated: “The time is now to show the nation that we as Nevadans lead when it comes to equality for all. We have to continue to fight to just obtain the simple rights that should be and ought to be guaranteed in our laws and in our constitutions…What Senate Joint Resolution No. 8 does provide for, is that we ensure that there is equality under the law.”

Democratic Senator Pat Spearman, who is a member of the LGBT+ caucus, stressed: “We’ve waited long enough for equal rights to be incorporated into our state constitution … We must be brave in protecting the weak, the downtrodden, the oppressed. We must be brave in lifting our fellow Nevadans to a place of justice and equality.”

Ultimately, the resolution became Question One on the ballot in the November 2022 midterm election. Question One garnered 58.6 percent/ 580,022 votes and altered the state constitution to include, in part, protections for gender identity and gender expression.

The entire amendment reads: “Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by this State or any of its political subdivisions on account of race, color, creed, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, age, disability, ancestry or national origin.”

Should the Douglas County School Board of Trustees adopt the policy at the school board meeting on May 16th and the ACLU NV moves forward with litigation, this will be the first legal test of the Equal Rights Amendment and the first Nevada case that will determine if biological females and males are equal to and deserving of legal protection afforded to their transgender classmates.

ACLU Douglas County

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4 thoughts on “ACLU NV Threatens Lawsuit Against Douglas County School District

  1. How about equal rights for young girls and women whose safety, well-being, and privacy are threatened due to so-called transgender equality policies. How about the rights of young women athletes who have trained for years to compete in women’s sports only to be undermined and defeated by male athletes who identify as women? Athletics need to be kept on an even playing field.

    The Question 1 amendment that passed is a joke. It should be called the “inequality” act because that is exactly what it expounds! People need to wake up and see this woke movement for what it is.

  2. Personal and strong opinion. In the aforementioned comment… protecting girls and women, AGREE.

    Things are so bad that our sisters who are incarcerated in the most vulnerable state a human can be in… are subject to more violations. Can’t speak out because you will be labeled “non-compliant”, and your day for day credits get taken away on the journey to redemption and accountability.

    You can not lift others up, if you are putting others down. The issue, concerning girls and women is the huge push from the current administration, his health secretary and many others. It continues to be white males who in whatever sense a going on in the country, that are pushing an obvious agenda…. But it was supposed to be about black according to the push that came in during the summer of 2020.

    Many a feminist, many a lesbian, many a gay or whatever their personal business is have been calling this out.

    Everyone with sense and sensibility have been trying to call it out, including physicians, psychologists and psychiatrists.

    Our current president, who I voted for as a first time voter and middle aged woman… because I didn’t like the then current president.I fell right in line like a dutiful slave. Even though it didn’t seem like the best thing to do as a choice.

    I kept hearing “democracy”, “protect democracy”, and thought that the group that had a similar name as a party, were the good ones and that the other was the bad one. And as a perfectly trained piece of human livestock, I followed suit, despite outliving their generational recipes to be the victor for the oppressed.

    There are so many underhanded things going on that are a huge detriment to our future generations. There is and has been huge co-opting from gigantic money inflows.

    There is and are the same groups, all the way up the chain in politics, human rights organization (who I used to support), who are behaving like covert narcissist domestic abusers.

    My goodness our Republic is in a disarray and the abusers, in positions of power and influence, have taken a firm grip on the helm. Everything from … well everything. Has had some mental health impacted and challenged individuals like me really messed up. The lies are not compassion. The lies are a dollar sign.

    The endorsement of psychosis is not compassionate. It isn’t. It’s also not compassionate and is inhumane to subject women and girls to comply with government sanctioned abuse (emotional or physical). No matter if it’s school… all the way to women’s prisons.

    This president who I voted for like the uniformed person I was. Said just days ago… that the greatest threat to our republic is white supremacy. He did the same “You Ain’t Black” comment from his basement campaign. I still voted for him. I regret it. I regretted it at the time.

    All I can see through a whole lot of life and being white and black is that yes he is right about that speech that he spoke at the college commencement . He said it’s “white supremacy”, well isn’t that you Mr. President Biden? You made that speech at an Historic Black college. It was your predecessor who actively and actually. “ President Donald Trump on Thursday signed a bipartisan bill that will permanently provide more than $250 million a year to the nation’s historically black colleges and universities, along with dozens of other institutions that serve large shares of minority students.”

    All I see is the white supremacy of a certain type who is infused with a “fix it”. Power hungry, money hungry, move the ball under the cup, shows up as the white horse savior and I don’t have much else to say other than I’m sorry that in my first time being able to vote for a president. That I got it so wrong and against my heart and soul. Vice President Kamala was right when she debated him.

    Don’t know what happened and why she accepted the role under him. I cried seeing someone who looks like me and many at that podium. Now… Her word salad annoys me. But… I do understand a bit why you have to do word salad around activists mob powerhouses. Boy are they powerful. It’s scary. More scary that well intentioned people can’t see the actual white supremacy and misogyny happening in our faces.

    The planet earth is not flat. That is factual and objective. And we can talk for days about many philosophical things. Personally tired of the plantation mindset pushed as truth. When it is not.

    It is not compassionate to lie to people and embolden their psychosis. If that were so, the Dr. at one of the many hospitals I was at years ago would have euthanized me as I was requesting.
    My, my goodness. Nevada, please do better and read everything before signing off on it. It may sound good at the time, get out of the automatic politics endorsements.

    The power has been so huge in working against the betterment of the historically marginalized. And now every day there are more marginalized made up somewhere. The “marginalized”, are the strongest people I know. It’s very discouraging to the point that I’ve unregistered. The two super powerful sides, the media/social media, in conjunction with corporations … to big pharma and organizations that were supposed to be the safe guards for humanity… are all bought and paid for, as evident in their hypocrisy.

    Darn shame. I’m personally disappointed in Senator Spearman and many other women leaders who have thrown generations and the legacy of ERA and title nine, under the bus.

    Stop lying to people. Stop using people as your poster children that are built on things not true. It’s wrong.

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