Sometimes, I play this game where I think of two words I believe I’ll never see in the same sentence. (I know… it gets slow in my head sometimes.) Well, this week, my mind game has come to life. I never thought I’d see “Title IX” and “free lunch” mentioned in the same sentence.
This is how it happened.
In January last year, the Biden administration issued an executive order intended to strengthen protections for LGBTQ students. It called for an overhaul of all government agencies’ anti-discrimination policies to make sure they encompass not only sexual orientation, but gender identity as well.
“Children should be able to learn without worrying about whether they will be denied access to the restroom, the locker room, or school sports,” the order began.*
School sports and transgender athletes. We know how heated that topic has become.
Up next… the Education Department
Then in June of this year, the Education Department announced proposed changes to Title IX that would include protections for LGBTQ students in cases of both sexual orientation and gender identity.
“[The changes] would make clear that preventing someone from participating in school programs and activities consistent with their gender identity would cause harm in violation of Title IX, except in some limited areas set out in the statute or regulations,” the department said.**
Again, my mind immediately went to athletics. What does that term “school programs” mean? Does that include sports teams?
No, the department says. In the same press release, it said it will issue a separate notice of proposed changes to Title IX to address whether and how students might participate on male or female athletics teams.
That hasn’t happened yet.
And now the USDA
Meanwhile, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) didn’t wait for the Education Department’s move. In May, the USDA announced that any entity that receives funding from its Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) — the agency that administers the free school lunch program — must interpret Title IX as the Biden administration does.
The announcement updated the definition of sex to include gender and gender identity and expanded the definition of sex-based harassment to include any action that prevents a student from participating in an education program or activity “consistent with their gender identity.”
“USDA is committed to administering all its programs with equity and fairness, and serving those in need with the highest dignity. A key step in advancing these principles is rooting out discrimination in any form — including discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity,” Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack said.***
The implication is that schools that don’t amend their anti-discrimination policies to align with the Biden administration’s definition of who is being discriminated against, and how they’re being discriminated against, won’t get federal funds for their free lunch programs.
In theory, that means that any school that doesn’t permit a biological male who identifies as a female to use the women’s bathroom or locker room or compete in school sports based on their gender identity, rather than their assigned sex at birth, could face a civil rights investigation and be barred from receiving school lunch funding.
Food fight!
The projectiles fly
By the end of July, 22 states announced they were suing the USDA for threatening to withhold funds for the FNS’s National School Lunch Program from schools that do not accept the Biden administration’s LGBTQ terminology and ideology.
At the same time, Grant Park Christian Academy in Tampa, Florida, threw its first handful. It sued the government to retain its free lunch program, which serves 56 low-income minority students. The lawsuit argued that the policy would force Grant Park to abandon its gender-specific student dress code, allow biological males into girls’ restrooms and force teachers to use students’ preferred pronouns, all of which goes against the tenets of their faith.
“The Biden administration is threatening to take away lunch money from low-income children simply because they attend Christian schools,” the academy’s legal counsel charged.****
On Monday, the Biden administration retreated, assuring Grant Park that it will retain access to the free lunch program.
So, that’s one lawsuit down. But how will this play out across the states and in the thousands upon thousands of schools across the country? The issue of whether gender identity can be applied to sports programs hasn’t been settled yet, so I don’t see how the USDA can make this ruling stick.
You can be sure I’ll be watching in the months ahead. The whole cafeteria could be trashed in this epic food fight!
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* Presidential Actions: “Executive Order on Preventing and Combating Discrimination on the Basis of Gender Identity or Sexual Orientation” (January 20, 2021).
** Dustin Jones, “Biden’s Title IX reforms would roll back Trump-era rules, expand victim protections,” NPR (June 23, 2022).
*** Press Release. “USDA Promotes Program Access, Combats Discrimination Against LGBTQI+ Community,” USDA (May 5, 2022). The directive also cover the agency’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), formerly the Food Stamp Program.
**** Sam Sachs, “Tampa religious academy sues Biden, Nikki Fried over school lunch program,” WFLA (July 28, 2022). The academy’s counsel is Erica Steinmiller-Perdomo of the Alliance Defending Freedom.