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Fox News
28-07-2025
- Politics
- Fox News
Maine education chief told state's schools to ignore Trump's executive orders, emails show
EXCLUSIVE: Emails provided to Fox News Digital show Maine Department of Education Commissioner Pender Makin writing memos for all the state's school districts after President Donald Trump began to make executive orders addressing public education. The opening months of Trump's second term saw a highly publicized feud with Maine Gov. Janet Mills over the issue of trans athletes in girls' sports. "Dear Champions of Education, as executive orders continue to flow out of DC, there is increasing misinformation, disinformation, and confusion impacting our schools," read Makin's draft of a memo for all the state's superintendents, in a Jan. 28 email, which was provided to Fox News Digital by the group Defending Education. "Last week, we advised schools to adhere to the Maine Human Rights Act and your local school board policies related to nondiscrimination. We encourage you to continue to keep all people safe and we reiterate the fact that, at present, neither our state law nor your local policies are diminished by the executive orders directing action at the federal level." It continued, "Most of the executive orders pertain to federal agencies and federal laws over which Maine DOE has no authority." Two days later, Makin corresponded with Maine Assistant Attorney General Sarah Forster, with a draft of a memo to schools. The memo included orders to avoid complying with Trump's "Ending Radical Indoctrination in K-12 Schooling," executive order. "… this EO changes nothing for Maine schools," part of an email discussing the memo wrote. The memo draft said "Maine schools should continue to follow the laws of our state and the provisions within their local policies." In Makin's email, she suggested cutting paragraphs from the memo that summarized the actual goals of the executive order out of the memo. Then, in a Jan. 31 email, Makin drafted another memo to superintendents and school leaders addressing the executive order. "The Executive Order does not alter the obligations of schools under state law, including the Maine Human Rights Act, and does not require any immediate changes to locally adopted school board policies," the memo read. By defying Trump's "Keeping Men Out of Women's Sports" executive order after it was signed on Feb. 5, the state allowed its winter girls' track and field season to conclude with an infamous podium finish. A transgender athlete from Greely High school won first place in the girls' pole vault state championship on Feb. 17. "I watched this male pole vaulter stand on the podium and we were all just like looking we were like 'We're pretty sure that's not a girl. There's no way that's a girl,'" Presque Isle High School girls' track athlete Hailey Himes previously told Fox News Digital. "It was really discouraging, especially for the girls on the podium not in first place. So that motivated me to fight for them." The incident quickly thrust the state into the national spotlight over the issue. A Feb. 19 email, which was sent between two members of the Maine Principal's Association (MPA), whose names were redacted upon request of public records, made mention of another order that was sent from Makin's department to all Maine schools. "The MPA is following the Maine Department of Education's priority notice that was sent out on Jan. 21st, 2025, instructing all schools in Maine to follow the Maine Human Rights Act," the email, which had the subject line "TITLE IX," read. The same message was circulated in another email between state education officials, whose identities were redacted upon a public records request, in early March. Trump made it a point on Feb. 20 to call out Maine for allowing "men in women's sports" during a White House Meeting of GOP Governors, vowing to cut funding to the state if it didn't comply with his executive order. The very next day, on Feb. 21, during a bipartisan meeting of governors, Trump threatened to cut federal funding right to Mills' face when she said she wouldn't comply. Earlier that morning, Makin sent a mass email to her Maine Department of Education colleagues, outlining impending defiance of Trump's executive order, disregarding his threats of federal funding cuts. "Last night, the President directly referenced the State of Maine, declaring his plan to withhold Federal funding from Maine because of reports that a transgender athlete is allowed to compete in high school sports," the email read, giving more instructions to follow the Maine Human Rights Act. "There are many congressional barriers and checks and balances of government that should prevent the president from acting on his statement." That same day, the superintendent of the school district that Greely High School is a part of, MSAD #51's Jeff Porter, reached directly out to Makin, asking if the state would be changing its policies to follow Trump's executive order. Makin's response was redacted upon a public records request. In the waning hours of that afternoon on the 21st of February, the U.S. Department of Education announced it would be launching a Title IX investigation against the state. In the first week of March, Makin was involved in an email chain with the Maine Education director of communications, and director of special projects, after an employee at Freeport High School sent a request for Makin. Freeport High School's girls' track team came in second place to Greely High School at the girls' track and field championships that the trans athlete competed in. The trans athlete's pole vault victory was pivotal in deciding the team finishes. However, the Freeport employee didn't appear to directly reference that incident in the email. "Many educators are shaken and feeling vulnerable," the employee wrote. "Hearing from you that we will stand together as a community would be a gift to Maine educators. I would like to hear in particular that the Maine DOE will offer support to any school or district targeted for investigation as a result of reports of 'divisive ideologies and indoctrination' or 'illegal discriminatory practices at institutions of learning.'" The email also referenced an apparent video Makin delivered at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, which the employee claims helped boost morale. The Education director of Special Projects wrote, in correspondence with Makin while discussing whether to honor the request, that they had received another request from Freeport. "My vote is that the field needs to hear from you… they need reassurance from their leader and the silence is not helpful… we got another one over weekend from Freeport," the director of special projects wrote. However, the director of communication argued that more responsibility should land directly with Mills to communicate with the schools. "My opinion is that a bigger conversation with the Governor's Office regarding communication to the field could be beneficial to us all," the director of communication wrote. Makin responded, writing "None of that could be done without the [governor's office] first giving approval… I hope they will allow her to do something before she gets to the TOY Gala on Saturday." It is unclear if Makin or Mills ever ended up fulfilling the Freeport employee's request. The past controversy involving the Greely High School athlete had a wide-ranging ripple effect on the state's congress. Maine GOP state Rep. Laurel Libby was censured by the Democrat majority for a social media post that publicized the Greely student who won the girls' pole vault title in February. Libby later filed a lawsuit that went all the way up to the Supreme Court over the censure. The Supreme Court ordered the state legislature to restore Libby's voting rights in May. However, her speaking rights were still withheld until Maine House Assistant Majority Leader Lori Gramlich, a Democrat, proposed Libby's speaking rights be restored on June 25. The resolution passed by a whopping vote of 115-16, despite previously voting 75-70 to censure Libby months earlier. Emails obtained by Fox News Digital from Gramlich's inbox show multiple self-described Democrat Libby constituents lambasting her and the party's handling of Libby's censure before Gramlich. "I am a lifelong Democrat who first worked for Eugen McCarthy's Presidential bid," one email wrote to Gramlich, Fecteau, later adding, "Depriving Libby of her voice and her vote does not punish her. She and the GOP love it… "Depriving her of her voice and vote is unethical, as it punishes her constituents. You have removed MY representative in the house. Depriving Libby of her voice and vote is the best thing that can happen to her in a long time. She is advancing her public profile dramatically, not just locally but statewide and nationally by playing the victim and claiming the role of protector of girls and women." Another email from another of Libby's constituents wrote, "I believe that supporting women in government must include supporting women with differing opinions. Silencing an elected official for expressing a viewpoint — even a controversial one — sets a concerning precedent for both free speech and fair representation." Fox News Digital has reached out to Gramlich's and Fecteau's offices to ask why they voted to restore Libby's speaking rights. On June 8, Libby and the Maine AG's office agreed to drop the censure lawsuit. Libby provided a statement to Fox News Digital one day earlier on June 7, addressing her decision not to contest the AG ruling her lawsuit moot after her rights were restored. "While the Attorney General now claims this case is moot, make no mistake—this is only because House Democrats backed down in the face of legal defeat. They rescinded the unconstitutional restrictions on my voting and speaking rights, and more importantly, they've put in writing that those restrictions cannot be reimposed for the same reasons in the future," Libby said. "I will not contest the AG's mootness argument—but only because the constitutional rights of my constituents have now been restored and the leadership has formally abandoned the punishment they once insisted was justified." The state is now in a lawsuit against the DOJ after refusing to make an agreement to comply with Trump's demands on protecting girls' sports. Residents organized multiple protests and marches on the state's capitol building in Augusta over the issue, wielding signs that echoed the messages of a national movement to "save girls' sports." Many of the protesters were girls' high school sports athletes like Himes, who marched on the capital to lobby for a state-level bill to keep girls' sports exclusively female in early May. Trump's administration made multiple funding pauses to the state over the issue of trans athletes, which were later rescinded. The first was to the state's university system, UMS, on March 11. That pause ended after a Title IX compliance review. The second pause came on April 2, when the U.S. Department of Agriculture cut funding to all Maine public schools. That pause ended on May 2. Amid the chaos, some school districts in the state even went out of their way to defy Mills and Makin, to comply with Trump on the issue. MSAD #70, in mid-April, and RSU #24, in early May, each passed localized resolutions that ensured only females were allowed in girls' sports. Still, the state's high school sports season in 2025 saw another transgender athlete for North Yarmouth Academy compete against girls in Nordic skiing and track and field. The state's tornado of national attention came to a lull in early June when the school year and high school sports season ended. The trans athlete for Greely High School that thrust the state into chaos months earlier did not show up to compete in the girls' state finals on June 10. Now, the state has a fall sports season to worry about in the coming months and a trial date with the DOJ in January as the state's Democratic leaders remain defiant of Trump. All the while, data suggests the state's residents don't support current policies. A survey by the American Parents Coalition found that out of about 600 registered Maine voters, 63% said school sports participation should be based on biological sex, and 66% agreed it is "only fair to restrict women's sports to biological women." The poll also found that 60% of residents would support a ballot measure limiting participation in women's and girls' sports to biological females. This included 64% of independents and 66% of parents with children under age 18. "The Maine Department of Education is captured by activists who want to project their troubling ideology onto children, regardless of the unfairness or even danger this poses to young girls. If Maine's officials truly cared about their athletes, they would have already reversed course years ago. Unfortunately, this is about pushing a dangerous ideology above all else," Defending Education's Casey Ryan told Fox News Digital of his opinion on Makin's handling of the situation. Defending Education Outreach Director Erika Sanzi told Fox News Digital, "It's bad enough when an individual school is teeming with gender ideologues but when the state's department of education is also overrun with these activists, the well-being of students is at much greater risk." Now, more than five months after Makin's initial guidance to Maine schools to defy Trump, the state's conflict with the White House may only just be beginning. And that defiance may not have even represented the desires of most Mainers to begin with. Additionally, because of that defiance that Makin helped stoke initially, Libby's rise could foreshadow a wide-ranging impact on the state's political balance of power in the 2026 midterms and Maine's gubernatorial election.
USA Today
12-07-2025
- Politics
- USA Today
100 years after the Scopes trial, Americans are still divided over what kids should learn
A century ago, a Tennessee science teacher's fight to teach evolution ignited national controversy. But battles over school curricula still rage. In 1925, an American teacher's fight to educate his high school students about evolution thrust a small-town controversy into the national spotlight. The case, now commonly known as the Scopes Monkey Trial, began when John Thomas Scopes taught Charles Darwin's theory of evolution in his classroom in Dayton, Tennessee. Scopes was charged under a state law that made it illegal to teach any doctrine that denied the creation of man as told in the Bible. The case ultimately reached the Tennessee Supreme Court, which upheld the law but acquitted Scopes on a technicality. In the century since, debates over what kids should learn in taxpayer-supported schools – and the role parents should play in shaping those decisions – have only intensified. This summer, those fights reached another crescendo when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that religious parents can opt their public-school children out of reading books with LGBTQ+ themes. But the curriculum wars have been intensifying for decades. In the 1960s, the Civil Rights Movement forced schools to start to reckon with decades of racist teachings and practices. The 1990s brought passionate fights over classroom standards. With the 2000s, came major tech innovations, from iPhones to YouTube, that raised new questions about whether those technologies had a place in the classroom. Then came the coronavirus pandemic. Many parents tried, and failed, to keep their kids from falling behind as schools closed. Meanwhile, anger toward the educational establishment among conservative parents grew into a full-fledged movement to exert more parental control in classrooms. "The longer classrooms remained closed, the more disenfranchised parents felt," said Sarah Parshall Perry, the vice president of the conservative group Defending Education and a former Education Department attorney in the first Trump administration. "The parental right does not end at the schoolhouse door," she said. One hundred years after the Scopes trial, the concept of parental rights continues to fuel curriculum battles – from book bans to LGBTQ+ censorship – in school boards and state legislatures nationwide. Teaching about race across America The debate over how American history, and its history with race in particular, should be taught in public schools intensified in a new way with the Scopes trial, said Adam Laats, a professor at Binghamton University who studies historical battles over education culture. The trial was the beginning of a "100-year war over controlling public schools," he said. "It's not just a question of evolutionary teaching," he said. "It's much bigger than that." Fast forward to 2020, when another national spotlight was cast on racial inequities following the high-profile killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor. In Taylor's hometown of Louisville, Kentucky, the local school superintendent, Marty Pollio, recalled being asked by state politicians for details regarding his district's racial equity policy, which had been in place for years before her killing. "We were being praised," Pollio said. But a year later, a nearly identical group of politicians questioned him over the alleged teaching of critical race theory in his schools. Critical race theory, or CRT, is a framework of legal analysis based on the idea that systemic racism is deeply embedded within American society. It is typically taught in U.S. law schools and colleges, not K-12 schools. On the national stage, those criticisms about CRT have widened in recent years into broader concerns among Republicans about the role of diversity, equity and inclusion, or DEI, programs in schools. DEI, a term that isn't always clearly defined, broadly refers to policies or programs that schools implement to prevent discrimination and create welcoming environments. In April, President Donald Trump's administration warned school districts that they could risk losing federal funding if they don't get rid of their DEI programs. Though that threat has been halted by a court battle, Pollio said it was an indication that much of the progress he felt was happening in 2020 is long gone. "I was really proud of the momentum that was happening in education at that time," he said. "But I'm really disappointed in how it's been abandoned at this point." Book bans on the rise Backed by conservative organizations like Moms for Liberty, efforts to control what books are on the shelves of classrooms and school libraries have also accelerated since the pandemic. Free speech advocacy group PEN America said over 10,000 books were banned in public schools in the 2023-24 school year, nearly tripling the previous year's number. The most common themes in the removed books include race, sexuality and gender identity, along with topics involving struggles with substance abuse, suicide, depression and other mental health issues, according to PEN America. In Tennessee, a state law passed in 2023 heightened tensions over what books are appropriate for young children. In 2024, at least 1,155 unique titles were pulled from the shelves or heavily age-restricted in Tennessee's public schools, according to The Tennessean, part of the USA TODAY Network. State funds for private and religious schools Another frontier in the modern-day battle over public schooling has less to do with what should be taught in the classroom, and more to do with another controversial question: Which schools should get taxpayer money? An increasing number of states are adopting programs that give families taxpayer-funded vouchers to offset private K-12 school tuition – including at religious schools. While vouchers may not be a direct part of deciding what's taught in public schools, they do reflect the larger conversation around how states handle public education. A major development in the debate on state-funded education is playing out in Oklahoma. In April, justices on the U.S. Supreme Court seemed sympathetic to a bid from the state's charter school board to create the first religious charter school in the U.S. But the court ultimately deadlocked 4-4 in the case, meaning the religious charter school would remain blocked. Greenlighting the school would have marked a major expansion of the use of taxpayer money for religious education. LGBTQ+ inclusion Legislatures in red states have pushed in recent years to censor teaching about LGBTQ+ history and culture in classrooms. It comes in the context of a broader movement in the U.S. to curb the rights of queer and transgender people. That campaign largely started in 2022 in Florida, where the Parental Rights in Education Act, a controversial measure dubbed by critics as the "Don't Say Gay" bill, was passed by the GOP-controlled legislature and signed by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis. The law prohibited classroom instruction on topics relating to sexual orientation or gender identity from kindergarten through third grade. A year later, the Florida state education board expanded the ban through 12th grade. The law's initial ambiguity created a "chilling effect" that inspired conservative politicians in states across the country to pursue similarly written measures, said Brian Dittmeier, the director of public policy at GLSEN, an LGBTQ+ advocacy group. "The vagueness of some of these policies is the point," he said. Since 2022, 11 states have adopted laws restricting discussions about LGBTQ+ people or issues in school curricula, according to a 2024 tally from the Movement Advancement Project, a nonprofit think tank. A court settlement eventually watered down the impact of Florida's so-called "Don't Say Gay" law by allowing teachers and students to still discuss topics relating to the LGBTQ+ community. For advocates like Quinn Diaz, a public policy associate at the LGBTQ+ rights group Equality Florida, the settlement was a big deal. It showed – much like the Scopes trial, Diaz said – how legal fights can ultimately help protect students and teachers. "The settlement remains a symbol of hope," they said. Three years, almost to the day, after the so-called "Don't Say Gay" law took effect, the pendulum swung in the other direction. The Supreme Court allowed parents nationwide to prevent their kids from reading LGBTQ+ books in school.
Fox News
02-06-2025
- Business
- Fox News
Hundreds of millions in tax money goes to contracts for DEI groups, watchdog finds: 'Total racket'
EXCLUSIVE: Over the last several years, a few dozen diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) consultant groups have racked up over a hundred million dollars in taxpayer-funded contracts from K-12 schools across the country, a new report by Defending Education found. The report, shared with Fox News Digital, details how 41 DEI consultant groups garnered millions in taxpayer-funded contracts from 303 school districts and public education entities from 2021 until now. In total, the groups collected over $123 million from public schools in 40 states. The report found public school DEI contracts in both red and blue states, from Florida and Alabama to California and Washington. Erika Sanzi, a spokesperson for Defending Education, described the schools-consultants partnership as a "total racket that makes schools worse" and often takes no consideration of age-appropriateness in curricula. According to the report, the biggest winner in the scheme was Amplify, a firm that provides professional development and curricula to school districts, which scored a total of over $70,500,000. The report states that in a now-scrubbed statement on its website, Amplify said its mission is to "make education, and thereby the world, more equitable and accessible" and to "help teachers support their students in constructing, questioning, expanding, and strengthening knowledge of where they come from and who they are becoming." In response, a representative for Amplify told Fox News Digital that the group "publishes textbooks and other instructional materials that help students learn reading, math and science" and that "there is no place anywhere in Amplify's products, or in the training programs about how to use them, for ideologies or political agendas." The representative said "our programs help students learn how to think, not what to think." The report highlights another consultant group, Adjusted Equity Solutions, which it says is associated with the Culturally Responsive School Leadership Institute, that claims to help schools challenge "whiteness and hegemonic epistemologies in school," use "equity audits to measure student inclusiveness, policy, and practice" and serve as "advocate and social activist for community-based causes in both the school and neighborhood community." This group took in over a million dollars from public schools during the study period. "Tinkering in the minds of other people's children is big business and countless K-12 schools across the country are active participants," Sanzi said. "They pay big bucks to enter into contracts with ideologues and activists who, in turn, gain access, directly or indirectly, to a captive audience of young minds." Speaking with Fox News Digital via Zoom, Sanzi said that "rather than this being a focus on sort of academic interventions, it's a lot of jargon that so far has not proven itself to be measurable. And there's really not much evidence, if any, that any of this is helping students or helping schools or helping staff." Sanzi said that though these DEI groups couch their activities in agreeable terms like "belonging" and "empathy," they often end up being a "wolf in sheep's clothing." "At first, you're thinking lesson on empathy, like that's good," she said. "Who wouldn't want their child to be empathetic? We want that. Until you realize that the lesson on empathy is going to be about something like a little girl in her bathroom at school, a staff member who's trans, so biologically male, but identifies as female, comes into the restroom with her. She naturally feels uncomfortable because that's a very natural feeling in a circumstance like that. But she's told that she needs to have 'empathy' for this grownup who identifies as female, right? And that her discomfort is the problem… That feeling discomfort in that situation is wrong or makes her un-empathetic." The Trump Department of Education has warned state education departments in all 50 states that they must remove diversity, equity and inclusion policies or risk losing federal funding. Despite this, Sanzi said many of these consultant groups have adjusted by scrubbing references to DEI on their websites and using other words to describe the same thing. "We see a lot of renaming," she said. "So, they might say, 'Well, we're getting rid of our DEI office or we're getting rid of our equity officer.' [But] the proof will be in the pudding because what we notice often is that you'll see a switch, like suddenly we hear the word belonging a lot more now. And so the question becomes, 'Are you getting rid of it? Or are you just rebranding it and shifting it somewhere else and taking it off your website?'" "What many people don't understand is that the founders of these consultant companies and the people who run them and the practitioners are activists. They are ideologues," she went on. "They have every right to believe that what they're transmitting is the right thing, but in a public-school setting that is required to maintain viewpoint diversity, these really have no place, not only because of the cost, not only cause it's public money, not only because they're not very transparent about what they're doing, but also because they are really trying to push an ideological agenda on other people's children." The Culturally Responsive School Leadership Institute did not respond to Fox News Digital's request for comment.
New York Post
21-05-2025
- Politics
- New York Post
Parents overwhelmingly want colleges to stop prioritizing race, allowing transgenders in girls' sports: poll
Parents want colleges and universities to place less of an emphasis on race in scholarship awards or staffing decisions — and overwhelmingly believe transgender competitors should be kept out of women's sports, a new poll shared with The Post found. A firm 54% of American parents with children between the ages of 15 and 21 oppose university policies of prioritizing race on certain scholarships, and 57% oppose hiring decisions made with a racial preference, according to a survey commissioned by Parents Defending Education, a conservative nonprofit advocacy group. On transgenderism, 60% of respondents said they don't believe transgender competitors should be allowed into women's sports, and 61% want women's bathrooms to be reserved for biological females. Advertisement 'It's no surprise that American parents and students expect a college experience that is academically rigorous, open to diverse viewpoints, and focused on preparing graduates for meaningful careers,' Paul Runko, Defending Education's director of strategic initiatives for K-12, told The Post. 'Colleges and universities should take note when families express concern about campus climates — calling for environments free from political extremism, ideological agendas, antisemitism, and campus disruptions.' 3 Parents backed antisemitism bias training for faculty and staff on college campuses. James Keivom Advertisement 3 The Trump administration has taken action against states such as Maine that allow transgender athletes to compete against biological women. AP Asked about institutions that have graduation ceremonies that are only open to students of a particular race, 57% said they are opposed to that. Across the board on many culture war issues, parents appeared uneasy with some of the politically fraught practices in colleges and universities across the country, the survey indicated. Over the past two years, anti-Israel protests have swept campuses across the country amid the Israel-Hamas war, leading to fierce debates over how administrators should respond. Advertisement Sixty-seven percent of parents believe colleges and universities should implement antisemitism bias training for faculty and staff. They also backed higher education institutions that discipline students for disrupting campus activities, 69% to 25%. Parents also generally expressed support for increased transparency in higher education. An overwhelming 82% want colleges to divulge foreign funding. A hefty 79% said that colleges and universities should prioritize American applicants over foreign ones in the admission process. Advertisement 3 Parents generally appeared to express an unease with diversity, equity and inclusion policies on campuses. Getty Images Most of the parents surveyed either have or plan on having their children enroll in college. Only 11% said their children won't attend college and 7% were unsure. The survey was taken between May 9–15 and sampled over 1,000 parents with children between the ages of 15 and 21. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points. Of parents surveyed, 43% considered themselves Republicans, 21% Independents and 34% Democrats.
Yahoo
19-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Colorado parent groups sue state over controversial new transgender law enforcing 'compelled speech'
Colorado potentially faces a major lawsuit regarding a new law on transgender protections and how it could violate free speech and parental rights. On Friday, Gov. Jared Polis signed into law the Kelly Loving Act, a bill that expands state anti-discrimination protections for transgender individuals by allowing a person's "chosen name" to qualify as a form of "gender expression" that is protected under the Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act (CADA). Now that the bill has passed, the group Defending Education (DE) has sued the state on behalf of the Do No Harm, The Colorado Parent Advocacy Network and Protect Kids Colorado groups out of concerns that the law could violate their free speech rights. "The Act's new definition of 'gender expression' is unconstitutionally overbroad," the lawsuit provided to Fox News Digital reads. "Because it covers any treatment based on the use of a 'chosen name' or other forms of preferred 'address,' it punishes many forms of constitutionally protected speech." Colorado's 'Totalitarian' Transgenderism Bill Sparks Concerns From Parents It continued, "When speakers refer to transgender-identifying individuals using biologically accurate terms, they advance a viewpoint about a hot-button political issue: gender ideology. That kind of speech lies at the core of the First Amendment. But the Act's definition of 'gender expression' makes all such speech discriminatory and unlawful." Read On The Fox News App The lawsuit added that since CADA prohibits the "publishing of discriminative matter," the new act could prohibit and potentially penalize individuals, including parents, for publicly disapproving of changing one's name and gender. In a statement to Fox News Digital, Sarah Parshall Perry, Vice President of Defending Education, said the law "muzzles" parents and doctors to protect the state's "preferred gender orthodoxy." "Colorado can't seem to stop losing at the Supreme Court on constitutional challenges to its anti-discrimination laws. And yet, Governor Polis has nevertheless signed another patently unconstitutional iteration of its Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act—something that can only be described as an exercise of remarkable hubris," Perry said. DE is seeking a preliminary and permanent injunction on enforcing this new definition as a violation of the First and Fourteenth Amendments for using "unconstitutionally overbroad" language and enforcing "compelled speech." "Do No Harm is proud to challenge Colorado's absurd so-called anti-discrimination act. Abridging American's constitutional right to freedom of expression in the name of radical gender ideology is wrong. We expect the court to reaffirm that the Constitution trumps progressive dogma," said Dr. Stanley Goldfarb, Chairman of Do No Harm. Fox News Digital reached out to the governor's office for comment. The Kelly Loving Act has come under fire by conservatives and Colorado parents since it was introduced in March. Among the protections in the original bill included a ruling that "deadnaming, misgendering, or threatening to publish material related to an individual's gender-affirming health-care services" could be considered forms of "coercive control" that could affect a parent's custody over children. After facing backlash, Colorado lawmakers eventually removed language regarding "deadnaming" and child custody, although opponents still criticized elements of the bill for broad language. Colorado Parents Unload On Liberal Lawmakers, Prompting Changes To Controversial Gender Bill Colorado has been at the center of several high-profile cases based on its anti-discrimination laws over the past few years. Most infamously, Masterpiece Cakeshop owner Jack Phillips has been sued multiple times over his refusal to bake a cake celebrating a same-sex wedding or a gender transition. In 2023, the Supreme Court ruled against the state, finding that Colorado's anti-discrimination laws could not force a graphic designer to create wedding websites for same-sex weddings in violation of her article source: Colorado parent groups sue state over controversial new transgender law enforcing 'compelled speech'
