‘WE LIVE IN FEAR’: Students Sue Minnesota University Over ‘Sexual Harassment’ Policy Compelling Obedience to Transgender Ideology
The University of Minnesota forces students to adopt transgender ideology in the name of preventing “sexual harassment,” and students are suing, saying the policies violate their free speech rights under the First Amendment and prevent them from inviting speakers such as the detransitioner Chloe Cole.
“We live in fear of being disciplined and having our future ruined if we even accidentally use a pronoun someone doesn’t like,” Jackson Barrick, a University of Minnesota student entering his senior year, told the Daily Signal in a statement Tuesday. Young America’s Foundation, a conservative youth organization, represents Barrick and fellow students in the lawsuit, with lawyers from the Southeastern Legal Foundation.
“In the last two years, there have been nearly 20 complaints filed with the university that students violated these policies,” Barrick added. “These policies are there to silence students who believe that sex cannot be changed.”
“This isn’t hypothetical,” the student added. “It has become our reality, and the reality of students all across Minnesota.”
The University of Minnesota declined to comment on pending litigation.
The University’s Policies
The lawsuit, filed June 18, challenges four university policies: two on sexual harassment, one on gender identity and pronouns, and one on discrimination.
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It claims the sexual harassment policies apply Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 to protect students on the basis of gender identity, thus requiring adherence to preferred pronouns on pain of facing a sexual harassment claim. The pronoun policy explicitly requires members of the university—students, faculty, staff, and even guests—to use a person’s preferred pronouns. The discrimination policy allegedly bars dissent on transgender ideology in the name of preventing discrimination.
Many of these policies explicitly apply to “guests,” and allegedly would impose punishments on students for viewpoints expressed by speakers the students invite to campus, according to the lawsuit.
Students at the University of Minnesota-Duluth, the University of Minnesota-Morris, the University of Minnesota-Rochester, and the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities are members of Young America’s Foundation and would invite speakers to campus, including Cole, the detransitioner.
Cole, a woman, identified as a male and underwent a mastectomy at age 16 before rejecting her transgender identity. She now speaks publicly against transgender ideology.
The students believe that sex and gender are intertwined, that sex is determined by biology and is immutable, that a man cannot become a woman and vice versa, and that a person’s sex—not gender identity—should determine how he or she uses sex-separated facilities.
The lawsuit claims the university’s policies violate the students’ rights under the First and 14th Amendments by imposing unconstitutionally vague rules, by discriminating against the students’ viewpoints, and by compelling them to endorse messages with which they disagree.
The students ask the court for a declaration that the policies violated the Constitution, an injunction preventing the university from implementing the policies, nominal damages of one dollar, attorney’s fees associated with the litigation, and any other relief the court deems proper.
A Precedent Across the Country
Kimberly Hermann, president of the Southeastern Legal Foundation, argued that a victory for the students would set an important precedent for colleges and universities across the country.
“These so-called anti-harassment policies that equate a belief in common sense—in biological sex—with harassment exist at nearly every college,” Hermann told the Daily Signal in a statement Tuesday. “A win declaring the University of Minnesota’s policies unconstitutional could have huge precedential effects, not only in the courtroom but also serving as a warning to all schools—K-12 and college—that students and parents have had enough.”
“They are no longer afraid to stand up and file lawsuits to stop radical gender ideology from being forced on them daily,” she declared.
While a ruling in the students’ favor may send a powerful message to other schools, it would not be entirely unprecedented.
“School policies that compel pronoun usage violating a person’s belief in biological sex violate the First Amendment,” Hermann stated. She cited the case of Defending Education v. Olentangy Local School District Board of Education, in which a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit ruled that an Ohio school district’s pronoun rules violated the First Amendment by compelling speech and engaging in viewpoint discrimination.
While advocates for transgender ideology claim that using a person’s preferred pronouns is a baseline courtesy, the lawsuit notes that the challenged policies “require a person to speak contrary to his deeply held beliefs and dictates the viewpoint he may express.”
The lawsuit claims that some students reported a member of the university because that person complained about being required to use the phrase “lactating individuals” rather than “mother.”
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