Biden administration ties school lunch funding to treatment of transgender students

The Biden administration announced that it is tying school lunch funding to schools’ policies regarding discrimination and treatment of transgender students as part of its new interpretation of Title IX anti-discrimination laws. The move could strip millions of federal dollars that are currently used to provide meals for students from low-income households and areas.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture announced last month that it would henceforth interpret U.S. anti-discrimination law “to include discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity” in order to “help ensure its programs are open, accessible and help promote food and nutrition security, regardless of demographics.”

The decision puts the USDA’s Food and Nutrition Service in line with President Joe Biden’s Inauguration Day executive order meant to prevent discrimination on the basis of gender identity. The president’s order, which cited the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Bostock v. Clayton County that held that federal code prohibiting sex discrimination also covered discrimination based on gender identity and sexual orientation, required federal agencies to take steps to implement the new interpretation.

The USDA posted on its website that any state or local agency or program that gets funding from the FNS “must investigate allegations of discrimination based on gender identity or sexual orientation” and “update their non-discrimination policies and signage to include prohibitions against discrimination based on gender identity and sexual orientation.”

What does this mean?

This move by the USDA means that all recipients of the FNS nutrition programs, including the School Breakfast Program and the National School Lunch Program, could lose funding if they do not strictly adhere to the White House’s new interpretation of Title IX regarding transgender students. Schools in states that do not allow students to use restrooms or locker rooms or participate in a specific sport based on their preferred gender risk seeing their federal monies slashed.

Critics say the White House is holding food programs “hostage” to push a social agenda and putting the wellbeing of millions of children at risk. In 2020, the NSLP, which offers food assistance to low-income students by providing free and reduced-cost meals, fed more than 22 million children per day — which was down from the 29.6-million average in 2019.

Governors in some states have vowed legal action to stop the threat to nutrition programs.

South Dakota Republican Gov. Kristi Noem issued a statement laying out her disagreement with the USDA’s announcement.

“President Biden is holding lunch money for poor Americans hostage in pursuit of his radical agenda. He is insisting that we allow biological males to compete in girls’ sports or else lose funding for SNAP and school lunch programs,” Gov. Noem said. “South Dakota will continue to defend basic fairness so that our girls can compete and achieve. I would remind President Biden that we have defeated him in litigation before and are ready to do so again. Mr. President, we’ll see you in court.”

The Department of Education is expected to issue its own new Title IX discrimination protections any day now, according to Politico.