Tennessee Attorney General Herbert Slatery believes a bill before the legislature requiring students to use bathrooms and locker room facilities in line with birth gender may violate federal laws.NASHVILLE - A group of Republican state lawmakers are calling on Tennessee Attorney General Herbert Slatery to challenge the Obama administration's legal authority in court if federal officials try to carry out "threats" to cut funds to local schools resisting federal policies on transgender students' bathroom usage.
In their letter to the state government's top lawyer, Sen. Janice Bowling, R-Tullahoma, and 32 colleagues said the U.S. departments for justice and education have no ability to direct schools to "accommodate students with gender identity disorder at the expense of the mentally healthy enrollment."
Republican Gov. Bill Haslam has raised similar concerns, accusing the Obama administration and federal officials of a "heavy-handed" approach to a sensitive issue that is best left to local education officials to work out.
"Our Office is just as concerned with the joint guidance letter issued by the Education Department and the [U.S. Department of Justice] as the Governor and many state legislators are," Slatery said in a statement.
On Monday, a group of 26 Republican state senators asked Haslam to sue the federal government.
Then on Tuesday, Bowling and 32 representatives and senators sent their letter to Slatery.
The letter notes the "sovereign states" of North Carolina, Mississippi, Oklahoma and Texas already have filed legal arguments against "this federal overreach. Creating directives in the absence of legal authority of supporting laws must be challenged."
It accuses the Obama administration officials of resorting to a favored tactic to advance "their far left social agenda" because, the lawmakers said, the U.S. Constitution or federal law doesn't support it.
"Bullying through threats of withholding the legal return of our pass-through dollars and bullying through their unique deployment of mobocracy seem to be interchangeable weapons in the arsenal used to achieve assumed unilateral authority," the letter charges.
The letter specifically asks Slatery "to challenge the legal authority of the federal government to enforce any 'directives' or financial withholding threats contained in the guidance letter" issued last week.
It also requests Slatery send a letter to all Tennessee's school districts "letting them know that the presidential directive is, as stated by Governor Haslam, not an enforcement action and makes no additional requirements."
In objecting to the Obama administration's directive, Haslam made the same argument this past legislative session as Tennessee lawmakers considered but took no final action on a bill requiring transgender students to use restrooms and locker facilities matching the biological sex listed on their birth certificates.
North Carolina passed a somewhat similar bill. The federal government is contesting it in court. North Carolina has countersued, charging the Obama administration overstepped its authority.
The Obama administration last week then issued the directive to all the nation's school districts, telling officials they face a cutoff of federal funds due to violations of Title IX of the 1964 Civil Rights Act banning sex and racial discrimination.
In an interview, Bowling said that because Tennessee didn't pass a transgender student bathroom law, the state doesn't have the same legal standing to sue.
"But what we can do is to send letters to the Department of Education and the Department of Justice telling them that we disagree with their ability to put such directives out, that it was not in compliance with the law and actually had totally rewritten law," Bowling said. "And that we were advising our [local education agencies] to not comply."
She said the intent is to put federal officials on notice "that any action they take against them would be met with a lawsuit. It's just drawing a line in the sand to let them know. We needed to do that for our LEAs."
That's because local districts' financial resources are limited and "they're always in fear of a lawsuit," Bowling said.
Bowling also said Slatery could file amicus or "friends of the court" briefs in support of North Carolina's case.
When the federal directive was issued last week, U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch said, "there is no room in our schools for discrimination of any kind, including discrimination against transgender students on the basis of their sex. This guidance gives administrators, teachers and parents the tools they need to protect transgender students from peer harassment and to identify and address unjust school policies."
While the directive doesn't carry the weight of law, the thrust is schools face loss of federal education funding if they don't comply.
Contact staff writer Andy Sher at asher@timesfreepress.com, 615-255-0550 or follow via Twitter @AndySher1.