A Missouri university has appealed a federal appellate court’s decision to the nation’s highest court asking it to prevent a federal agency from forcing colleges to allow trans students to live in women’s dormitories.
The College of the Ozarks sued U.S. Pres. Joe Biden and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development in April 2021 over its Fair Housing directive that prohibits universities from segregating students based on sexual orientation or gender identity when they occupy housing and in policies that govern those dwellings.
“Women's dorms, especially their bedrooms and their shared shower spaces, should be private and safe, and religious schools take very seriously their duty to respect women's dignity and privacy by not assigning men as their roommates,” said Julie Marie Blake, lead counsel for College of the Ozarks. “When men are allowed into their dorms and their bedrooms and their shared showers, it's often women who lose in this situation.”
As previously reported in the St. Louis Record, U.S. District Judge Roseann Ketchmark, who was appointed by former President Barack Obama, ruled that the College lacked subject matter jurisdiction because it is not being investigated, charged, or otherwise subjected to any enforcement action based on the Fair Housing memorandum.
The college filed its Petition for Writ of Certiorari with the U.S. Supreme Court on Feb. 27 after the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the lower federal court’s ruling against the Christian undergraduate institution.
“They've misunderstood the law that governs when courts can hear cases, and it's been the case for a long time that people don't need to suffer these fines, investigations, enforcement actions, or lawsuits for violation, but instead can go to court at the beginning when the government creates a new rule and the new rule is unlawful, and it's requiring people who are regulated by the rule to change their behavior,” Blake told the St. Louis Record.
In response to a congressional question from a Missouri representative, HUD Secretary Marcia Fudge said under oath that she thought the directive was the law and that the college was in violation, according to Blake
“The government asked the court to have the right to be able to bring investigations, enforcement actions, and other things in the future,” she said in an interview.
In College of the Ozarks v. Biden, the College is also asking the U.S. Supreme Court to review the fact that HUD did not schedule public notice or comment, which the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) requires as part of the rulemaking process.
"The Fair Housing Act itself also requires this public participation process, too," Blake added. "The bottom line is that women should be able to change clothes without fear of men watching them."