Nothing is more challenging in the current cultural climate than trying to protect the right of women to be free of politically correct – and dangerous – government mandates forcing them to acquiesce to the notion that biological males who believe they are women really are women.
It’s bad enough that girls and women’s high school and college sports are being ruined by an influx of transgender females who, being biologically male, dominate in sports where strength and speed and size give the athlete an edge. But now the federal government is requiring colleges – including Christian schools – to open women’s dormitories to biological men who claim transgender status as females. That would include assigning biological males as roommates for biological females.
That’s a bridge too far for one Christian school. College of the Ozarks, a private, Christian college located in Point Lookout, Missouri, is pushing back by filing a federal lawsuit naming President Joe Biden and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) as defendants.
In January, President Biden issued an executive order directing all federal agencies to redefine the word “sex” to include sexual orientation and gender identity in all the federal nondiscrimination laws they enforce. On February 11, HUD issued a memorandum stating their legal position that for all housing covered by the federal Fair Housing Act, discrimination charges based on sexual orientation or gender identity would now be considered discrimination based on “sex.”
Women’s housing at College of the Ozarks – along with every other college dormitory across the country – comes within the scope of the Fair Housing Act. Failure to comply with the law can subject the school and its administrators to civil and criminal penalties, including huge fines and even jail time.
The college filed its lawsuit with the help of attorneys from Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF). Among the numerous claims asserted as to why the administration’s new policy must be blocked, the school alleges violations of its rights under the First Amendment and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.
Forcing a Christian school to violate its biblical beliefs concerning the God-created differences between men and women is a major encroachment on religious freedom, according to ADF.
“The government cannot and should not force schools to open girls’ dorms to males based on its politically motivated and inappropriate redefinition of ‘sex,’” said ADF Senior Counsel Julie Marie Blake in a press release. “Women shouldn’t be forced to share private spaces—including showers and dorm rooms—with males, and religious schools shouldn’t be punished simply because of their beliefs about marriage and biological sex. Government overreach by the Biden administration continues to victimize women, girls, and people of faith by gutting their legal protections, and it must be stopped.”
In the same press release, College of the Ozarks President Dr. Jerry C. Davis sounded a similar theme in announcing the lawsuit.
“Religious freedom is under attack in America, and we won’t stand on the sidelines and watch,” Davis said. “To threaten religious freedom is to threaten America itself. College of the Ozarks will not allow politicians to erode this essential American right or the ideals that shaped America’s founding.”
The lawsuit is titled College of the Ozarks v. Biden.
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