Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos on Thursday called the transgender bathroom guidelines from the Obama administration "an overreach," a day after the Trump administration rescinded those rules.
"This issue was a very huge example of the Obama administration's overreach, a one-size-fits-all, top-down approach," DeVos said at the Conservative Political Action Conference. These matters should be handled at a "personal and local level."
DeVos' words came less than a day after the Department of Justice and the Department of Education issued a joint statement about the decision "to withdraw and rescind" guidelines issued last year by the Obama administration requiring that schools allow transgender students to use restrooms matching their chosen gender rather than their birth gender.
The announcement has drawn anger from LGBTQ rights groups. It also comes before the Supreme Court hears the case of Gavin Grimm, a Virginia high school student seeking a nationwide bathroom standard for transgender students. The court will likely hear Grimm's case next month.
On Thursday at CPAC, DeVos kept her comments limited to the overreach statement, pointing to a statement she released on Wednesday night.
"We have a responsibility to protect every student in America and ensure that they have the freedom to learn and thrive in a safe and trusted environment," she said in the statement. "This is not a federal mandate, but a moral obligation no individual, school, district or state can abdicate."
According to The New York Times, DeVos had at first resisted rescinding the rules because of the potential harm such actions would cause for transgender students. This put her at odds with Attorney General Jeff Session, the Times reported, and President Trump told DeVos to end her opposition earlier this week.
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That Betsy,,, you sexy thing..