By Laureen Boll | Guest Columnist, Rocky Mountain Voice
I’m quite close to recent events happening at the Douglas County School Board, given my role as a parent advocacy leader in Douglas County and being a parent of two children whose K-12 years were spent in Douglas County School District (DCSD).
Much of my role as a parent advocate is monitoring laws and regulations against the rights of individuals upheld by the U.S. Constitution, and speaking up when it appears that the rights of parents and/or students are being violated by the government, in this case taxpayer-funded schools.
The Douglas County School District recently updated its Nondiscrimination/Equal Opportunity policy to incorporate a new state statute titled “Concerning Protections for Students Against Discriminatory Practices at School.” The school district’s current nondiscrimination policy defines harassment as any unwelcome, hostile and offensive verbal, written or physical conduct based on or directed at a person’s immutable characteristics such as race, sex and sexual orientation. The updated policy prohibits verbal conduct that is “unwelcome” (which isn’t defined) and directed at a group of people. In this case, a protected class.
The updated policy lowers the threshold of what is deemed to be “harassment” by making it dependent upon the group of people that are subjected to said unwelcome verbal conduct, and not the actual merit of the language. This is a very important distinction, as it’s taking microaggressions to a whole new level.
A few years ago, I watched a video about microaggressions through the “No Place for Hate” program, and I recall one example in which a young white student asked a black student how she got accepted into a top-ranked university. Because the recipient of this question was black, and there was an insinuation about the intent of the question, it was considered a microaggression. Under the framework of Douglas County School District’s updated policy, this question or comment could be considered harassment if it is “objectively offensive to a reasonable individual who is a member of the same protected class.” It’s rational to assume that this updated policy would stifle speech out of fear of offending someone.
In April 2024, the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights issued an update to Title IX regulations, in which the department noted that they will enforce Title IX’s prohibition on discrimination in federally-funded education programs on the basis of sex to include sexual orientation, gender identity and sex characteristics. Thus, Douglas County School District’s insertion of the following verbiage appears to many as a reaction to the Biden Administration’s updated Title IX guidance: “The district prohibits discrimination of any student who seeks to participate in or benefit from the district’s facilities, programs, activities or services on the basis of any status protected by law. “
Because gender identity is now considered a protected status, it’s reasonable to assume that this updated policy language means that boys who identify as girls would be allowed to compete in girls’ sports and access girls’ spaces such as bathrooms and locker rooms (these meet the definition of ‘facilities, programs, and activities’). This begs the question: When the rights of female students are in conflict with a male student’s gender identity, whose rights will be upheld?
Douglas County community members were apprised of these policy updates and their likely implications, and were encouraged to voice their concerns to the Douglas County School Board’s directors. More than 100 parents did express their concerns, enough to give pause to the conservative school board directors. In a 4-3 vote, the school board voted to delay the vote on the policy updates in order to give themselves more time to understand the legal ramifications of the proposed updates. Below are a few headlines from local media outlets in response to the school board’s action:
9News: Conservative parents’ groups protested against the expansion that would put more protections in place for LGBTQ kids
Colorado Times Recorder: Colorado School Board Succumbs to Right-Wing Pressure, Delays Ruling on Nondiscrimination Policy
Colorado Community Media: Opponents pressure Douglas County school board over Title IX protections for transgender students
I’m gobsmacked that the media thinks there should be ‘extra protections’ for transgender students. Groups of people do not have special rights; that would be tyrannical and antithetical to the vision of individual rights as described in the Declaration of Independence and enshrined in the U.S. Constitution. I’m not surprised that the state statute referenced earlier seeks to create special rights for groups, as that is the agenda of the progressive wing of the Colorado Legislature. It’s also being advanced by the Biden Administration, as evidenced by the updated Title IX regulations.
Fortunately, Douglas County community members have a better understanding of our Constitutional rights than the local media, and they will not be bullied into silence. I implore all Coloradans to advocate for your rights and the rights of your loved ones, particularly in the face of progressive media outlets who wish to shame you into silence.
Shame on them.
Editor’s note: Opinions expressed in commentary pieces are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the management of the Rocky Mountain Voice, but even so we support the constitutional right of the author to express those opinions.