Texas Attorney General returned to court on Thursday to press his case against the Biden administration鈥檚 workforce protections for transgender employees.
Texas鈥檚 lawsuit, on Thursday against the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the U.S. Justice Department, argued that the agency鈥檚 guidelines were unlawful and asked that the court permanently block them.
The EEOC鈥檚 guidance, , seeks to clarify what constitutes harassment under federal law. It denying employees accommodations for their gender identity 鈥� such as by prohibiting an employee from using the bathroom of their gender identity or repeatedly and intentionally using a name and pronoun that is inconsistent with a person鈥檚 gender identity 鈥� is unlawful workplace harassment.
鈥淗arassment, both in-person and online, remains a serious issue in America鈥檚 workplaces,鈥� Charlotte Burrows, the agency鈥檚 chair, said at the time. 鈥淭he EEOC鈥檚 updated guidance on harassment is a comprehensive resource that brings together best practices for preventing and remedying harassment and clarifies recent developments in the law.鈥�
The Texas suit said that the guidance 鈥減urports to preempt the State鈥檚 sovereign power to enact and abide by its workplace policies鈥� and raises the 鈥渇orced choice of either changing their policies at taxpayer expenses or ignoring the Guidance and accepting impending enforcement actions and increased costs of litigation and liability.鈥�
鈥淭he Biden-Harris Administration is attempting yet again to rewrite federal law through undemocratic and illegal agency action,鈥� Paxton said in a statement. 鈥淭his time, they are unlawfully weaponizing the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in an attempt to force private businesses and States to implement 鈥榯ransgender鈥� mandates 鈥� and Texas is suing to stop them.鈥�
The lawsuit, which Texas filed along with the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, is a continuation of Paxton鈥檚 legal challenges to the Biden administration鈥檚 gender-affirming policies. It is of suits Texas has brought against the federal government since Biden stepped into the White House in January 2021, legal steps that seek to advance some of the highest-priority conservative issues of the day.
In July, U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk by Texas that it block the EEOC鈥檚 May guidance without ruling on the merits of the request, saying the state鈥檚 challenge required a new complaint because it was filed against a new document. The lawsuit on Thursday was that new complaint, and Paxton鈥檚 latest effort to stymie the Biden administration鈥檚 agenda.
In 2021, Texas over earlier EEOC guidance on how to determine what constitutes harassment in the workplace. Those guidelines 鈥� which included many of the same directives as the agency鈥檚 May guidance 鈥� were implemented after the Supreme Court that Title VII of the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964, which bars employment discrimination on the basis of sex, applies to gay and transgender workers as well.
In that 2021 lawsuit, Kacsmaryk , deciding that the Biden administration鈥檚 protections for LGBTQ employees went too far beyond the high court鈥檚 ruling.
Paxton filed Thursday鈥檚 lawsuit again in Amarillo, where Kacsmaryk, an appointee of President Donald Trump, hears nearly all cases. Kacsmaryk was the first judge to be appointed directly from a religious liberty law firm. He previously worked at First Liberty, a Plano-based conservative Christian law firm, where he cases involving abortion, contraception and gender identity.