Biden administration will defend Christian schools accused of anti-LGBTQ bias

President of the United States Joe Biden
Photo: Gage Skidmore – Wikimedia Commons

The Biden administration has surprised LGBTQ advocacy groups by forcefully telling a federal court they will defend Christian schools’ religious freedom to discriminate against LGBTQ students. The Department of Justice (DOJ) says it shares the “same ultimate objective” as the college and universities that have been accused of bias.

Thirty-three LGBTQ students who attended religious colleges and universities have filed a class-action lawsuit against the Department of Education, saying that giving religious exemptions to colleges so that they can discriminate against LGBTQ students resulted in harassment, conversion therapy, expulsion, and humiliation.

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Many colleges and universities openly discriminate against LGBTQ people, even writing out explicit policies that ban students from coming out, forcing them to present as their sex assigned at birth, prohibiting them from forming clubs, and banning dating someone of the same sex. Title IX’s religious exemption says that that’s fine since “an educational institution which is controlled by a religious organization” can discriminate if the ban on discrimination based on sex “would not be consistent with the religious tenets of such organization.”

A group of current students, students who got expelled, and alumni of exempt schools formed an organization called Religious Exemption Accountability Project (REAP) and they’re suing, saying that the federal government is…

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