DOE: Quaker school can discriminate against transgender student

[n2doc]

By Emma Margolin
In the wake of Hobby Lobby, religious exemptions may be gaining strength.

Last week, the Department of Education closed a discrimination complaint filed by an Oregon transgender student, who was denied on-campus housing with his male friends at a Christian college. With what the student’s attorney described as “lightning speed,” the DOE granted George Fox University a religious exemption from Title IX, the 1972 civil rights law that prohibits sex discrimination in federally funded education programs and activities. Though the school is private, it accepts millions of dollars every year from the government via student loan programs.

Twenty-year-old Jayce, who goes only by his first name to protect himself against harassment, filed a Title IX complaint against the university in April. School officials told Jayce he had to live in an on-campus single apartment, instead of with his male friends because he was born a biological female. Jayce has completed the transition process, with his birth certificate, driver’s license, and Social Security card all reflecting that he is male.

“I feel like I have the right to live with other males,” Jayce told Portland’s KGW.com. “As a person who is transgender, there is a lot of anxiety, depression that comes along with that and I don’t feel like that would be right for me to live by myself due to those things.”

Unbeknownst to Jayce, George Fox University had applied for a religious exemption – the same kind recently affirmed in the Supreme Court’s Hobby Lobby decision – days before he submitted his Title IX complaint. Even more shocking, the DOE granted the religious exemption almost immediately thereafter.

“In the past, it took years for exemptions to go through,” said Paul Southwick, Jayce’s attorney, to msnbc. “I have no idea why [the DOE] did it so quickly here. But they did do it more quickly than historically, with complete deference to the university.”

more
http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/doe-grants-religious-exemption-quaker-school-discriminate-transgender-student

[pipoman]

1. The only piece of this I take issue with is...

"Though the school is private, it accepts millions of dollars every year from the government via student loan programs."

Student loans are not "government money" imo. A government guaranteed loan is the money of the borrower as the borrower quickly learns when the payments come due. Government grants otoh....

[eShirl]

2. ahh... "Evangelical Quakers"

never could wrap my head around that concept (as someone raised in New England Yearly Meeting)

[TreasonousBastard]

3. NY YM here, and...

yes, I have a wee problem with programmed meetings of any sort, but the evangelicals are completely out of it.