Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is taking a hard swing at the Biden Administration with his latest lawsuit, marking it as the 75th legal challenge his office has waged against the current federal government. This time, Paxton is zeroing in on what he deems an "illegal" guidance from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) regarding gender identity accommodations in the workplace.
The Texas Attorney General's Office announced today that Paxton filed a lawsuit against the EEOC, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland, and other officials. At the heart of the contention is a guidance issued on April 29 by the EEOC that would interpret "sex" as defined in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, so as to require employers to accommodate bathroom, dress code, and pronoun usages in accordance with a worker's "gender identity," rather than their biological sex. This approach, Paxton argues, contradicts a prior ruling in favor of Texas, which stopped similar EEOC guidance last year, as the Texas Attorney General's Office reported.
"Yet again the Biden Administration is trying to circumvent the democratic process by issuing sweeping mandates from the desks of bureaucrats that would fundamentally reshape American law," Paxton said. In no uncertain terms, Paxton points out the administration's failure to appeal the previous court's decision and the federal government's stubbornness in their latest push, which, he claims, flies in the face of established legal precedent.
With this legal move, Paxton is urging the court to enforce its earlier declaratory judgment, vacate the EEOC's guidance from April 29, and stop the administration from issuing any further guidance that is "contrary to law." Through this action, Texas seems poised to assert its stance on the matter, challenging the federal government's authority over state affairs, especially those involving interpretations of civil rights law. "Texas will not stand by while Biden ignores court orders forbidding such actions and, we will hold the federal government accountable at every turn," Paxton further explained in his office's announcement.
