JACKSON HOLE, Wyo. — Wyoming Superintendent of Public Instruction Brian Schroeder expressed his disgust at a federal mandate linking school lunch money to gender identity politics, calling the measure nothing more than “extortion.”
“I wish to denounce in the strongest terms possible, the Biden Administration’s recent reinterpretation of the USDA’s Title IX funding to update its nondiscrimination policies and signage ‘to include prohibitions against discriminations based on gender identity and sexual orientation.’”
In its simplest form, Title IX is an anti-discrimination mandate that prohibits federally funded educational institutions from discriminating on the basis of sex. Some recent interpretations of the amendment include schools forced to accommodate unconventional gender identification such as binary by provided bathrooms and locker rooms for several categories of genders and sexual orientations.
“Though unsurprising, it is nonetheless both disheartening and astounding that our federal government could become so cynical as to tie the school lunches of little kids to its ever-relentless agenda of social engineering,” Schroeder added. “Arrogance and disrespect are usually two sides of the same coin—and here you have a generous supply of both. This is not about discrimination, it is about control and manipulation…it is, on its face, an egregious, albeit subtle, form of discrimination in its own right.”
At stake is some $50M in annual federal funding earmarked for food and nutrition by the state’s education department.
“Federal overreach knows no bounds—and to hold our kids hostage in this manner is not only morally repugnant, but another breathtaking display of political ideology run amok,” Schroeder continued. “In any other world, this would be sized up for exactly what it is: extortion. I only hope that ‘We the People’ have the stomach to stand up to it, because it won’t stop until the people say ‘enough.’ If we don’t, we will be guilty of enabling an overbearing and oppressive federal government that is completely out of control.”
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