Twenty-six Republican attorneys general signed a letter sent to the Biden Administration urging it to drop LGBTQ requirements for federal school lunch funding. A May 5 memorandum from the Agriculture Department said state agencies and schools participating in federal food assistance programs must update their policies to ban discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.
The memo has created concern the administration will cut off Food and Nutrition Act funding to schools that prohibit biological boys from using girls’ restrooms and participating in girls’ sports.
Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost said using “hungry children as a human shield in a policy dispute violates basic decency.”
“Aren’t there any parents in the Biden Administration that can see past the edges of their ideology,” Yost asked.
The letter states the guidance imposes “new and unlawful” regulatory measures on state agencies and operators receiving federal financial assistance from the USDA.
“The inevitable result is regulatory chaos that would threaten the effective provision of essential nutritional services to some of our most vulnerable citizens,” it states.
Two facts make the guidance unlawful according to the group of GOP AGs. It was issued without providing states and other stakeholders a chance for input, which is required by the Administrative Procedures Act. It also was premised on an “obvious misreading and misapplication” of the Supreme Court’s ruling in Bostock v. Clayton County.
“We have long had a productive relationship with the federal government, managing various food and nutrition programs guided by the principles of cooperative federalism,” the letter states. “We would like to continue this cooperative relationship. But the guidance flouts the rule of law, relies on patently incorrect legal analysis that is currently under scrutiny in the federal courts and was issued without giving the states the requisite opportunity to be heard.”
Alabama AG Steve Marshall
Alaska AG Treg Taylor
Arizona AG Mark Brnovich
Arkansas AG Leslie Rutledge
Florida AG Ashley Moody
Georgia AG Christopher Carr
Idaho AG Lawrence Wasden
Nebraska AG Douglas Peterson
Indiana AG Todd Rokita
Kansas AG Derek Schmidt
Kentucky AG Daniel Cameron
Louisiana AG Jeff Landry
Mississippi AG Lynn Fitch
Missouri AG Eric Schmitt
Montana AG Austin Knudsen
North Dakota AG Drew Wrigley
Ohio AG Dave Yost
Oklahoma AG John O’Connor
South Carolina AG Alan Wilson
South Dakota AG Jason Ravnsborg
Texas AG Ken Paxton
Utah AG Sean Reyes
West Virginia AG Patrick Morrisey
Wyoming AG Bridget Hill
Virginia AG Jason Miyares
