West Michigan schools forced to navigate Title IX jumble amid injunction

CALEDONIA, Mich. (WOOD) — A West Michigan school board has found itself in legal limbo just ahead of the start of the school year after a federal judge in Kansas granted an injunction regarding new Title IX regulations.

Earlier this week, for the second time this month, the Caledonia Community Schools Board of Education decided to table its Title IX update from the superintendent’s report.

Four of the district’s schools still fall under old Title IX rules because at least one student at each respective school has a parent who is part of the conservative group Moms for Liberty, which filed a lawsuit to block Title IX amendments from the Biden administration. On Friday, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to issue a stay of the injunction , which means it will stand while the appeals process continues.

The other five schools in Caledonia’s district, however, will have to abide by the new Title IX regulations.

“We want to continue to wait and see how things go. That is the posture we are continuing to take,” Superintendent Dirk Weeldreyer said during this week’s board meeting . “The regulations did in fact go into effect on Aug. 1, so the way things currently stand for our district is we have four schools that are under the injunction and we have five schools that are not.”

The new Title IX regulations expand harassment and discrimination protections for LGBTQ+ students. Cooley Law School Professor Jeffrey Swartz told News 8 that the changes protect students from being discriminated against by a school or its board because of their gender identity or sexual orientation.

“That is providing the appropriate bathrooms for them, allow them to use the bathrooms of the gender they identify with, allow them to wear the clothes of the gender they identify with, to show up dances and/or proms with the date of their choice,” Swartz said.

Some parents who oppose the new Title IX amendments voiced their concerns at the Caledonia school board meeting earlier this week.

“Under the regulations, it appears that schools must comply with a student’s request to change their pronouns even if the student’s parents’ object,” said Shawn Collins, who spoke on behalf of himself and his friend John Bursch , an attorney who previously argued before the U.S. Supreme Court to uphold Michigan’s ban on same-sex marriage.

“The regulations also warn schools about disclosing a student’s identity because it could lead to harassment, which when combined with other provisions means that schools need to 1) assign a boy who claims to be a girl to a girls-only room on an overnight field trip or sports trip and 2) not inform the girls or parents that those girls will be sharing a room with a biological male,” Collins continued.

The Caledonia schools did not opt in to the lawsuit. Rather, they were placed on a list of some 100 Michigan schools covered by the injunction by the Kansas judge when it was issued in July. Other districts in West Michigan that have some of their schools on the list include Cedar Springs, Grand Rapids Christian, Grandville, Hastings, Portland, Ravenna, Reeths-Puffer, Thornapple Kellogg and Wayland.

“(Moms for Liberty) claim that this is all about the rights of the students who are subjected to LGBTQ students and all of their liberties and impedes their freedom of expression and speech. It is exactly the other way around,” said attorney Swartz, who specializes in constitutional law. “Their push is meant to deny LGBTQ students their freedom of expression, their freedom of speech, their freedom of association, their freedom of religion. All of those things are being denied because maybe a student within a school has now impeded those freedoms through the Mothers ‘Against” Liberty.”

All Michigan schools must still abide by the state’s Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act , which prohibits discrimination based on gender identity or sexual orientation.

Regardless, Swartz predicts this won’t be the last time we’ll hear arguments surrounding this case and concept. He said it will make its way to the U.S. Supreme Court by early next year.

He said Moms for Liberty will then “use whatever is decided in the federal court to say that the state constitution … cannot violate federal law.”

He explained that would be a way for Moms to Liberty to try to overturn the Elliot-Larson Civil Rights Act.

“That calls for basically segregating LGBTQ students. I can see the Mothers ‘Against’ Liberty going in there and saying, ‘OK, we have a student here and a mother who objects. So you can’t oppose those regulations.’ And slowly but surely, forcing LGBTQ students into a one particular school,” he suggested. “In other words to create a segregated environment. That’s not the purpose of Title IX and that’s not really in keeping with the rights and privileges of all students and all parents.”

In the meantime, Caledonia Community Schools joins a growing list of those with boards confused about how and what Title IX rules they will enforce at the start of the school year.

“Mainly our legal advice is this is the law currently because it did go through this regulatory process, but with the injunctions and the court challenges that obviously are down the road could put it into question,” the Caledonia superintendent said.

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