Two weeks ago the Obama administration issued a federal edict decreeing that every public school in America allow students to use whichever bathroom they choose, under pain of lawsuit and/or loss of federal funding.

Less than a week after that, New York City’s Commission on Human Rights issued its own edict, declaring that anyone under the city’s rule who refused to use the preferred gender pronouns in dealing with transgender individuals—he, she, “xe,” or “hir”—would be guilty of harassment and subject to penalties up to $125,000 for the first infraction and $250,000 “for violations that are the result of willful, wanton, or malicious conduct.” As law professor Eugene Volokh noted, the use of the term “harassment” is important, because it means that employers and businesses are responsible not just for their own behavior but for the behavior of their employees and customers.