A group of 33 LGBT plaintiffs filed a class-action lawsuit on Monday against the Department of Education over the Title IX religious exemptions allowed for federally funded institutions.
The suit, filed by the Religious Exemption Accountability Project on behalf of the mix of current and former students, argues that the exemptions have allowed their colleges and universities to discriminate against them. According to the group, the complaint was filed “to put an end to the U.S. Department of Education’s complicity in the abuses and unsafe conditions thousands of LGBTQ+ students endure at hundreds of taxpayer-funded, religious colleges and universities.”
“The U.S. Department of Education is duty-bound by Title IX and the U.S. Constitution to protect sexual and gender minority students at taxpayer-funded colleges and universities, including private and religious educational institutions that receive federal funding,” the complaint said. “The religious exemption to Title IX, however, seemingly permits the Department to breach its duty as to the more than 100,000 sexual and gender minority students attending religious colleges and universities where discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity is codified in campus policies and openly practiced.”
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Title IX, passed by Congress in 1972, prohibits sex-based discrimination in education programs or activities that receive federal dollars.
In a statement to the Washington Examiner, an Education Department spokesperson said, “The Biden-Harris administration — and the Office for Civil Rights — is fully committed to equal educational access for all students,” pointing to President Joe Biden’s March 8 order on sexual orientation and gender identity-based discrimination in education.
“With regard to the exemptions you cite, when Congress enacted Title IX in 1972, it included an exemption for educational institutions controlled by religious organizations,” the statement said. “The text of Title IX provides that it does not apply to ‘an educational institution which is controlled by a religious organization’ where its application ‘would not be consistent with the religious tenets of such organization.’”
The complaint details a range of experiences among the individual plaintiffs, including allegations that they were bullied and, in some cases, required to attend conversion therapy by their schools. Plaintiffs attended a number of schools of varying size, including Baylor University, Liberty University, Union University, and Brigham Young University, Idaho, among others.
Paul Southwick, director of the Religious Exemption Accountability Project, could not immediately be reached for comment about the complaint but wrote in a Wednesday tweet, “Liberty University continues to promote conversion therapy on campus. Conversion therapy kills LGBTQ+ kids. Our government should not be funding it.”
A Liberty spokesman declined to comment on the suit, which includes one plaintiff’s account of undergoing “conversion therapy” at the university, but the spokesman did say that Southwick’s tweet is “not true.”
Liberty University continues to promote conversion therapy on campus. Conversion therapy kills LGBTQ+ kids. Our government should not be funding it. https://t.co/MF947kYNOF
— Paul Southwick (@PaulSouthwick) March 31, 2021
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When asked for a response to the lawsuit, which includes two plaintiffs who are currently students at Baylor, the university told the Washington Examiner, “Baylor University maintains certain rights to exercise its freedom of religion under the U.S. Constitution and other federal laws without interference by the government. This includes exemptions for religiously affiliated institutions that uphold traditional religious beliefs about marriage and sexuality,” adding, “As part of our Christian mission, Baylor continues to strive to provide a loving and caring community for all students, including our LGBTQ students.”
