West Virginia
Federal appeals court overturns transgender sports ban
CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — A federal appeals court has overturned a West Virginia transgender sports ban, finding that the law violates Title IX, the federal civil rights law that prohibits sex-based discrimination in schools.
The 2-1 ruling Tuesday from the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals blocks a West Virginia law banning transgender girls from playing on girls’ sports teams.
The court said the law cannot lawfully be applied to a 13-year-old girl who has been taking puberty-blocking medication and publicly identified as a girl since she was in the third grade.
In February 2023, the court had blocked the state’s bid to kick Becky Pepper Jackson off her middle school track and field team if the law were enforced.
The court Tuesday ruled in favor of the American Civil Liberties Union, its West Virginia chapter and LGBTQ interest group Lambda Legal, which filed a lawsuit in 2021 against the state and county boards of education and their superintendents as defendants. Republican Gov. Jim Justice had signed a bill into law earlier that year.
“This is a tremendous victory for our client, transgender West Virginians, and the freedom of all youth to play as who they are,” ACLU West Virginia attorney Joshua Block said in a statement.
West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey, a Republican, said he was “deeply disappointed” in the decision.
“I will keep fighting to safeguard Title IX. We must keep working to protect women’s sports so that women’s safety is secured and girls have a truly fair playing field,” the Attorney General added. “We know the law is correct and will use every available tool to defend it.”
Sports participation is one of the main fronts in legislative and legal battles in recent years over the role of transgender people in U.S. public life. Most Republican-controlled states have passed restrictions on participation, as well as bans on gender-affirming health care for minors. Several have also restricted which bathrooms and locker rooms transgender people can use, particularly in schools.
West Virginia is one of at least 24 states with a law on the books barring transgender women and girls from competing in certain women’s or girls sports competitions.
The bans are in effect in Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas and Wyoming.
In addition to West Virginia, judges have temporarily put enforcement of the bans on hold in Arizona, Idaho and Utah.
A ban in Ohio is to take effect later this month.
The Biden administration originally planned to release a new federal Title IX rule — the law forbids discrimination based on sex in education — addressing both campus sexual assault and transgender athletes. Earlier this year, the department decided to split them into separate rules, and the athletics rule now remains in limbo.
Last year, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a lower court’s decision blocking a ban on transgender athletes competing in girls and women’s sports in Idaho.
The 2nd Circuit ruled differently last year in a challenge to Connecticut’s policy of letting transgender girls compete in girls sports, reviving the case and sending it back to a lower court without ruling on its merits.
Texas
State fined $100,000 per day for failing to act on foster care abuse allegations
CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas (AP) — A federal judge is fining Texas $100,000 per day for routinely neglecting to adequately investigate allegations of abuse and neglect raised by children in the state’s struggling foster care system.
U.S. District Judge Janis Graham Jack in Corpus Christi ruled Monday that the Texas Health and Human Services agency has shown contempt of her orders to fix the way the state investigates complaints by children in its care.
This is the third such contempt finding in a case that began with a 2011 lawsuit over foster care conditions at the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services, the child welfare arm of HHS.
In a 427-page ruling, the judge cited a “continued recalcitrance” by the agency’s Provider Investigations unit to conduct thorough, accurate and timely probes of allegations of abuse, neglect and exploitation.
“As demonstrated by the stories of the children and PI’s failure to take any action to remedy the egregious flaws identified by the Monitors, PI represents a significant, systemic failure that increases the risk of serious harm,” the judge wrote.
Texas has about 9,000 children in permanent state custody for factors that include the loss of caregivers, abuse at home or health needs that parents alone can’t meet.
“The judge’s ruling is measured but urgent, given the shocking evidence,” said attorney Paul Yetter, representing the foster children in the lawsuit. “Innocent children are suffering every day. After all these years, when will state leadership get serious about fixing this disaster?”
Officials at the DFPS declined comment. A spokesperson at HHS said the agency, led by Commissioner Cecile E. Young, was reviewing the order.
Lawyers for the state have previously said that while there is always room for improvement, state officials have sufficiently complied with the court’s remedial orders.
The state has also argued that the court monitors haven’t reviewed a large enough sample size of children to make sweeping conclusions.
The fines levied against Texas will be lifted when the state can demonstrate that its investigations are in compliance. A hearing is set for late June.
Since 2019, court-appointed monitors have released periodic reports on DFPS progress toward eliminating threats to the foster children’s safety.
A January report cited progress in staff training, but continued weaknesses in responding to investigations into abuse and neglect allegations, including those made by children. Monitors also said children aren’t told how to report sexual abuse and the state hasn’t proved that it has properly trained its caseworkers to identify potential victims.
In one case, plaintiffs say, a girl was left in the same residential facility for a year while 12 separate investigations piled up around allegations that she had been raped by a worker there. The girl remained exposed to that worker until she was “dumped in an emergency room, alone, with her jaw broken in two places,” the judge said. The facility was eventually shut down by the state.
Federal appeals court overturns transgender sports ban
CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — A federal appeals court has overturned a West Virginia transgender sports ban, finding that the law violates Title IX, the federal civil rights law that prohibits sex-based discrimination in schools.
The 2-1 ruling Tuesday from the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals blocks a West Virginia law banning transgender girls from playing on girls’ sports teams.
The court said the law cannot lawfully be applied to a 13-year-old girl who has been taking puberty-blocking medication and publicly identified as a girl since she was in the third grade.
In February 2023, the court had blocked the state’s bid to kick Becky Pepper Jackson off her middle school track and field team if the law were enforced.
The court Tuesday ruled in favor of the American Civil Liberties Union, its West Virginia chapter and LGBTQ interest group Lambda Legal, which filed a lawsuit in 2021 against the state and county boards of education and their superintendents as defendants. Republican Gov. Jim Justice had signed a bill into law earlier that year.
“This is a tremendous victory for our client, transgender West Virginians, and the freedom of all youth to play as who they are,” ACLU West Virginia attorney Joshua Block said in a statement.
West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey, a Republican, said he was “deeply disappointed” in the decision.
“I will keep fighting to safeguard Title IX. We must keep working to protect women’s sports so that women’s safety is secured and girls have a truly fair playing field,” the Attorney General added. “We know the law is correct and will use every available tool to defend it.”
Sports participation is one of the main fronts in legislative and legal battles in recent years over the role of transgender people in U.S. public life. Most Republican-controlled states have passed restrictions on participation, as well as bans on gender-affirming health care for minors. Several have also restricted which bathrooms and locker rooms transgender people can use, particularly in schools.
West Virginia is one of at least 24 states with a law on the books barring transgender women and girls from competing in certain women’s or girls sports competitions.
The bans are in effect in Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas and Wyoming.
In addition to West Virginia, judges have temporarily put enforcement of the bans on hold in Arizona, Idaho and Utah.
A ban in Ohio is to take effect later this month.
The Biden administration originally planned to release a new federal Title IX rule — the law forbids discrimination based on sex in education — addressing both campus sexual assault and transgender athletes. Earlier this year, the department decided to split them into separate rules, and the athletics rule now remains in limbo.
Last year, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a lower court’s decision blocking a ban on transgender athletes competing in girls and women’s sports in Idaho.
The 2nd Circuit ruled differently last year in a challenge to Connecticut’s policy of letting transgender girls compete in girls sports, reviving the case and sending it back to a lower court without ruling on its merits.
Texas
State fined $100,000 per day for failing to act on foster care abuse allegations
CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas (AP) — A federal judge is fining Texas $100,000 per day for routinely neglecting to adequately investigate allegations of abuse and neglect raised by children in the state’s struggling foster care system.
U.S. District Judge Janis Graham Jack in Corpus Christi ruled Monday that the Texas Health and Human Services agency has shown contempt of her orders to fix the way the state investigates complaints by children in its care.
This is the third such contempt finding in a case that began with a 2011 lawsuit over foster care conditions at the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services, the child welfare arm of HHS.
In a 427-page ruling, the judge cited a “continued recalcitrance” by the agency’s Provider Investigations unit to conduct thorough, accurate and timely probes of allegations of abuse, neglect and exploitation.
“As demonstrated by the stories of the children and PI’s failure to take any action to remedy the egregious flaws identified by the Monitors, PI represents a significant, systemic failure that increases the risk of serious harm,” the judge wrote.
Texas has about 9,000 children in permanent state custody for factors that include the loss of caregivers, abuse at home or health needs that parents alone can’t meet.
“The judge’s ruling is measured but urgent, given the shocking evidence,” said attorney Paul Yetter, representing the foster children in the lawsuit. “Innocent children are suffering every day. After all these years, when will state leadership get serious about fixing this disaster?”
Officials at the DFPS declined comment. A spokesperson at HHS said the agency, led by Commissioner Cecile E. Young, was reviewing the order.
Lawyers for the state have previously said that while there is always room for improvement, state officials have sufficiently complied with the court’s remedial orders.
The state has also argued that the court monitors haven’t reviewed a large enough sample size of children to make sweeping conclusions.
The fines levied against Texas will be lifted when the state can demonstrate that its investigations are in compliance. A hearing is set for late June.
Since 2019, court-appointed monitors have released periodic reports on DFPS progress toward eliminating threats to the foster children’s safety.
A January report cited progress in staff training, but continued weaknesses in responding to investigations into abuse and neglect allegations, including those made by children. Monitors also said children aren’t told how to report sexual abuse and the state hasn’t proved that it has properly trained its caseworkers to identify potential victims.
In one case, plaintiffs say, a girl was left in the same residential facility for a year while 12 separate investigations piled up around allegations that she had been raped by a worker there. The girl remained exposed to that worker until she was “dumped in an emergency room, alone, with her jaw broken in two places,” the judge said. The facility was eventually shut down by the state.
