Latest news with #NoMeninWomen'sSportsExecutiveOrder
Miami Herald
06-05-2025
- Business
- Miami Herald
Trump v. law firms: President uses power on potential court foes
National Trump v. law firms: President uses power on potential court foes U.S. President Donald Trump signs the No Men in Women's Sports Executive Order in the East Room at the White House in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday, Feb. 5, 2025. (Yuri Gripas/Abaca Press/TNS) TNS WASHINGTON - President Donald Trump first used the power of the White House against a law firm in February, ordering a review of Covington & Burling's government contracts because a lawyer had assisted the special prosecutor who indicted him in Florida and the District of Columbia. Security clearances should be suspended, Trump wrote, pending a review of the lawyers' roles and responsibilities "in the weaponization of the judicial process." More than a dozen law firms have made deals with Trump or faced executive orders against them for participating in perceived sleights or harmful actions against him or his supporters, a tactic legal experts say undermines the rule of law by discouraging lawyers from taking cases and clients disfavored by the White House. Clark Neily, a senior vice president for legal studies at the libertarian Cato Institute, told reporters earlier this month that he has "rarely seen something more palpably unconstitutional" than the orders targeting law firms. Neily called Trump's orders "a dagger at the heart of due process and of our national tradition of resolving disputes peacefully through a legal process." Trump's executive orders took aim at law firms over suits they brought on behalf of their clients against Trump or his allies, attorneys they hired, or their perceived violations of discrimination law for diversity, equity and inclusion policies. The orders question their government contracts, remove security clearances, revoke access to government buildings and resources and more. Four of the targeted firms - WilmerHale, Perkins Coie, Jenner & Block and Susman Godfrey - have challenged the orders in court. All have received temporary court orders blocking the Trump administration's executive orders. Judge Richard J. Leon of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, in granting a partial temporary restraining order in favor of WilmerHale, wrote that "the retaliatory nature of the Executive Order at issue here is clear from its face" and the order would be crippling to the firm, endangering its relationship to its clients and chilling their ability to enter federal courthouses. "There is no doubt this retaliatory action chills speech and legal advocacy, or that it qualifies as a constitutional harm," Leon wrote. Nine law firms - Paul, Weiss; Skadden; Milbank; Willkie Farr; Cadwalader; Kirkland & Ellis; A&O Shearman; Simpson Thacher; and Latham & Watkins - have cut deals with the Trump administration. Those include terms like providing pro bono work for the government, hiring fellows for work the administration supports and not discriminating against conservative attorneys, and have sparked resignations and public recriminations. The president announced on social media that Skadden agreed to provide at least $100 million "in pro bono Legal Services, during the Trump Administration and beyond, to causes that the President and Skadden both support," among other terms. Dozens of former Skadden attorneys signed a public letter that called the deal "embarrassing" and said it didn't live up to the firm's position as a leading law firm. "In light of Skadden's position, it is outrageous and self-interested that rather than fulfilling the legal profession's oath and standing in solidarity with fellow law firms that were fighting to uphold the Constitution, Skadden caved to bullying tactics instead," the letter said. Trump also lashed out at the judge assigned to the Perkins Coie case in a post on his social media platform Truth Social. In the post Trump incorrectly says he is suing the firm but goes on to attack Judge Beryl Howell as having a "sick judicial temperament." "It's called Trump Derangement Syndrome, and she's got a bad case of it. To put it nicely, Beryl Howell is an unmitigated train wreck. NO JUSTICE!!!" Trump posted. Howell, in an opinion Friday striking down that executive order, wrote that no American president has ever done such an executive order targeting a law firm and it in effect sends "the clear message: lawyers must stick to the party line, or else." In an interview with Time magazine, Trump defended the executive orders and said "Well, I've gotta be doing something right, because I've had a lot of law firms give me a lot of money." He also said the law firms' deals with him were signs that "they knew what they did wrong and they didn't want to get involved with it. And that's okay. That's the way it works, unfortunately." The Trump administration has defended the executive orders and argued in court filings in the Perkins Coie case that they are "well within the scope of Presidential prerogative" and represent the federal government acting as "contractor and employer, managing who it does business with and how, based on what it believes to be in the public interest." In a filing in court, the administration downplayed the impact of the order, saying it did not summarily terminate security clearance or access to government buildings. "However, nightmare scenarios such as all Perkins attorneys being barred from courtroom practice, all staff being banned from going to the post-office, and no Perkins employees ever being allowed to join the Federal workforce is, currently, the stuff of imagination," the administration said. Eroding resistance Several experts said that Trump's efforts to target law firms and other critics undercuts a major feature of the U.S. legal system - the right to an attorney. Experts said bringing the weight of the federal government against those who cross him represents an escalation which has so far been met with little resistance from Republican lawmakers. Gregg Nunziata, executive director for the Society for the Rule of Law, said the attacks on law firms and legal organizations and Trump's criticisms of judicial rulings combine to erode resistance to Trump's moves to exert presidential power. The administration is "trying to choke off" both the lawsuits headed into the legal system and the judicial orders coming out of the system, Nunziata said. "So it's a terribly alarming time." Beyond directly targeting law firms, Trump and his allies have criticized bar associations and publicly mulled pulling the nonprofit status of groups that oppose the administration in court. David Rapallo, an associate professor of law at Georgetown Law and former staffer at the White House and Congress, said in the past members of Congress raised concerns about the executive branch wielding its power to stifle critics or retaliating against those with different political views. "What we're seeing is a lawless, transactional presidency with a very simple equation: agree with what he wants whether it's legal or not, or get retaliated against, legal or not. It's pressing against the rule of law across the board," Rapallo said. Those concerns have included multiple investigations into alleged targeting of conservative groups by the IRS during the Obama administration, Rapallo said, as well as investigations into alleged targeting of conservatives by the Biden administration. At a White House event last month, Trump said his administration was looking at revoking the nonprofit tax status of a number of organizations, including Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. "It's supposed to be a charitable organization," Trump said of CREW. "The only charity they had is going after Donald Trump. So we're looking at that. We're looking at a lot of things." The group, which regularly sues the federal government, has filed or served as counsel for several lawsuits against the Trump administration since January. In a statement the group pushed back on Trump's threat. "For more than 20 years, CREW has exposed government corruption from politicians of both parties who violate the public trust and has worked to promote an ethical, transparent government. Good governance groups are the heart of a healthy democracy. We will continue to do our work to ensure Americans have an ethical and accountable government," the statement said. Democrats respond So far the only objections have come from Democrats. In joint letters, Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., and Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., urged the law firms that settled with the president to provide information on the deals they cut and called the orders "an unprecedented abuse of power" and "an open attack on the rule of law." "These executive orders seek to impose harsh penalties on lawyers for the causes and clients they represent. This express form of viewpoint discrimination - a classic violation of First Amendment rights - runs counter to American values that have been the bedrock of our democracy and the legal profession since the founding era," the letters said. In a statement last month, the American Bar Association objected to Trump's efforts to intimidate judges and law firms and called on attorneys to resist the executive orders. "We reject efforts to undermine the courts and the profession. We will not stay silent in the face of efforts to remake the legal profession into something that rewards those who agree with the government and punishes those who do not. Words and actions matter," the ABA statement said. "And the intimidating words and actions we have heard and seen must end. They are designed to cow our country's judges, our country's courts and our legal profession." Last month, more than half a dozen Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee sent a letter to the ABA praising the group's work and that of law firms that stood up to the administration's "illegal and unconstitutional attacks on the legal profession." The letter, led by Sen. Peter Welch, D-Vt., argued that Trump's efforts violated free speech rights and the Constitution's right to independent counsel. The Justice Department responded with a memo that it would no longer support employees participating in ABA events, and attendance at events had to be approved by the deputy attorney general, citing its litigation in favor of "activist causes" and opposition to specific Trump administration policies. ---------- Ryan Tarinelli contributed to this report. Copyright (C) 2025, Tribune Content Agency, LLC. Portions copyrighted by the respective providers. This story was originally published May 6, 2025 at 9:30 AM.
Yahoo
14-02-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Trump's latest order targeting trans people makes little sense
President Donald Trump's whirlwind first few weeks have included a series of orders targeting transgender people, which the administration alleges are designed to protect women and girls. On Feb. 5, Trump signed an executive order banning trans women and girls from competing in female sports. The NCAA quickly moved to change its policy in compliance, instituting a new rule affirming the executive order. Then on Wednesday, a new mandate came down from Trump's Education Department. This one says that Title IX will not apply to name, image and likeness deals. The directive winds back guidance from then-President Joe Biden's administration, which stated that schools must equitably distribute image and likeness (NIL) payments between male and female athletes. Under the guise of a word salad that included phrases such as 'financial aid' and 'gender equity,' Craig Trainor, Trump's acting assistant secretary for civil rights, argued that the Biden White House had no authority to force schools to split NIL funds this way. There are words, and then there are actions. The executive order banning trans women was expected, given how conservatives focused on the issue during the 2024 election. But the measure, called the 'No Men in Women's Sports Executive Order,' was couched in language about 'protecting' athletic opportunities for women and girls. And yet, with its new NIL guidance, the Trump White House is sending the opposite message. While the decision from the Education Department has no teeth, the symbolism is hard to miss. The guidance states that women's sports are important — but not important enough that they deserve equal funding. Women's athletic opportunities are important, the administration claims — but not necessarily as important as the opportunities afforded to men. If men's sports drive more dollars via TV rights and fans in the stands, that's where the lion's share of the NIL money should go. This is the same attitude that drove business decisions — and funding decisions — 10 to 20 years ago, before the rise of successful professional women's leagues such as the WNBA, NSWL and PWHL. And well before women became a massive draw in college athletics. The Trump administration may prefer that era, but women certainly won't. While women's hoops coaches such as UConn's Geno Auriemma and UCLA's Cori Close have spoken out regarding the recent orders from the Trump administration, it is a bit perplexing to have heard nothing thus far from some of the collegiate stars and up-and-coming pros who relied so heavily on their success in women's college athletics. But of course, this move sends an even more unsettling message to the transgender community in America. The efforts to erase and remove trans women from women's athletics feel less like protecting women and more like villainizing an already marginalized community for political gain. The Education Department has also asked the NCAA to reverse transgender athletes' records; yet another measure of invalidating the trans community. Crafting policies for trans athletes is complicated and everyone agrees that safety and fairness must be prioritized. But conservatives don't appear very interested in the complexities of this topic. Keep in mind that out of the almost 500,000 student-athletes who make up the NCAA, a minuscule fraction are transgender. Depending on your source, anywhere from roughly 10 to 40 athletes identify as transgender. I'm currently friends with a trans athlete who has competed at the highest levels of professional bowling. The United States Bowling Congress has a very rigorous set of rules and guidelines trans athletes must follow if they want to compete. It isn't easy. But not every sport is the same. And that is exactly why this topic requires nuance. The Trump administration's messaging, on the other hand, is not nuanced. And neither is it about protecting opportunities for women. This article was originally published on
Yahoo
06-02-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Trump signs executive order banning trans women from women's sports
President Donald Trump signed an executive order Wednesday, Feb. 5, prohibiting transgender women and girls from competing in female sports. The measure, called the 'No Men in Women's Sports Executive Order,' is the fourth executive order targeting transgender people he has signed since he took office Jan. 20. 'The radical left has waged an all-out campaign to erase the very concept of biological sex and replace it with a militant transgender ideology,' Trump said from a podium at the White House, with dozens of women and girls standing behind him. 'With this executive order, the war on women's sports is over.' Trump also gave multiple examples of what he described as 'men claiming to be girls' and 'stealing' victories, at one point perpetuating the false claim that Algerian female boxer Imane Khelif, who faced intense scrutiny over her gender at the Paris Olympics in August, was assigned male at birth. In a call with reporters Wednesday morning ahead of the signing, White House officials said that they expect headlines about the executive order to use the word 'transgender' but that 'this has nothing to do with that.' The order, they said, aims to protect women's access to safe and fair athletic opportunities, and it will do that in two ways, they said. First, officials said, the administration will roll back the Biden administration's guidance on Title IX, a civil rights law that prevents sex-based discrimination in education programs and activities that receive federal funding. Under that guidance, schools were required to allow trans students to access school sports teams and sex-segregated facilities that align with their gender identities. Trump's order will, instead, bar students assigned male at birth from participating in girls' and women's sports and using women's restrooms. The Education Department will be tasked with investigating potential violations, and the administration 'will be asking for investigations,' the officials said. Second, officials said, the administration will work with sports governing bodies, including the International Olympic Committee, to ensure the guidance is followed in noneducational settings. The guidance, they added, will affect U.S. visa policies. 'If you are coming into the country and you are claiming that you are a woman but you are a male here to compete against women, we're going to be reviewing that for fraud,' one of the officials said. The timing of the 'No Men in Women's Sports Executive Order' does not appear to be coincidental: Wednesday is the 39th annual National Girls & Women in Sports Day, which was started in 1987 as a way to celebrate female athletes and inspire girls to participate in sports. The issue of transgender women participating in women's sports was a consistent and divisive topic leading up to the November elections. On the campaign trail — and even after he won the election — Trump referred to trans women as men and pledged to 'keep men out of women's sports.' A Gallup survey of U.S. adults conducted in May 2023 found that nearly 70% of respondents said trans athletes should be allowed to compete only on sports teams that correspond with their birth sexes, up from 62% in 2021. Twenty-seven states already have laws, regulations or policies banning transgender students from participating in sports consistent with their gender identities, according to the Movement Advancement Project, an LGBTQ think tank. Former Harvard University swimmer Schuyler Bailar, who made history in 2015 as the first openly transgender athlete to compete on a Division I men's team, called the order 'absolutely devastating' and 'discriminatory.' 'This, I think, is a really horrible way to invite a lot of discrimination — not just against trans people — but also against all people in the women's category, because this is a policing of women's bodies in sports.' said Bailar, 28. Riley Gaines, a former college swimmer who has become an outspoken opponent of trans women in women's sports, applauded the trans sports ban on social media Tuesday and attended the signing ceremony Wednesday. Gaines wrote on X: 'Things could've been so different. Gender insanity was the final straw that brought a lot of moderates to the side of common sense. Specifically, I believe it was the issue of men in women's sports. I've been living in a state of gratitude everyday since Nov 5th. Praise God.' A number of LGBTQ rights organizations criticized the order after Trump signed it Wednesday. Carl Charles, a senior attorney for Lambda Legal, an LGBTQ legal advocacy organization, said the order 'takes aim at K-12 and college athletes — a vanishingly small subset of people who on the whole, outside of a few sensationalized examples, have been participating in school sports programs for decades with absolutely no issues.' 'We are appalled, and in fact disgusted, at this administration's insatiable appetite for fearmongering about and relentless targeting of this most vulnerable population,' Charles said. He added that multiple states that have enacted restrictions on trans athletes' participation have faced lawsuits. Courts have blocked state bans in Arizona, Idaho, Utah and West Virginia. New Hampshire's restriction has been blocked against the two trans plaintiffs who sued, and Montana's law has been permanently blocked from taking effect in colleges but not K-12 schools, according to the Movement Advancement Project. Before Wednesday's trans sports order, Trump signed three others that directly target transgender people. On Inauguration Day, he signed an order proclaiming that the government will recognize only two sexes, male and female, and that 'these sexes are not changeable.' He also signed orders barring transgender people from serving openly in the military and restricting access to gender-affirming care for trans people younger than 19 nationwide. This story first appeared on This article was originally published on
MTV Lebanon
06-02-2025
- Politics
- MTV Lebanon
Trump signs executive order banning trans women from women's sports
President Donald Trump signed an executive order Wednesday prohibiting transgender women and girls from competing in female sports. The measure, called the 'No Men in Women's Sports Executive Order,' is the fourth executive order targeting transgender people he has signed since he took office Jan. 20. 'The radical left has waged an all-out campaign to erase the very concept of biological sex and replace it with a militant transgender ideology,' Trump said from a podium at the White House, with dozens of women and girls standing behind him. 'With this executive order, the war on women's sports is over.' Trump also gave multiple examples of what he described as 'men claiming to be girls' and 'stealing' victories, at one point perpetuating the false claim that Algerian female boxer Imane Khelif, who faced intense scrutiny over her gender at the Paris Olympics in August, was assigned male at birth. In a call with reporters Wednesday morning ahead of the signing, White House officials said that they expect headlines about the executive order to use the word "transgender" but that "this has nothing to do with that." The order, they said, aims to protect women's access to safe and fair athletic opportunities, and it will do that in two ways, they said. First, officials said, the administration will roll back the Biden administration's guidance on Title IX, a civil rights law that prevents sex-based discrimination in education programs and activities that receive federal funding. Under that guidance, schools were required to allow trans students to access school sports teams and sex-segregated facilities that align with their gender identities. Trump's order will, instead, bar students assigned male at birth from participating in girls' and women's sports and using women's restrooms. The Education Department will be tasked with investigating potential violations, and the administration 'will be asking for investigations," the officials said. Second, officials said, the administration will work with sports governing bodies, including the International Olympic Committee, to ensure the guidance is followed in noneducational settings. The guidance, they added, will affect U.S. visa policies. "If you are coming into the country and you are claiming that you are a woman but you are a male here to compete against women, we're going to be reviewing that for fraud," one of the officials said. The timing of the 'No Men in Women's Sports Executive Order' does not appear to be coincidental: Wednesday is the 39th annual National Girls & Women in Sports Day, which was started in 1987 as a way to celebrate female athletes and inspire girls to participate in sports. The issue of transgender women participating in women's sports was a consistent and divisive topic leading up to the November elections. On the campaign trail — and even after he won the election — Trump referred to trans women as men and pledged to 'keep men out of women's sports.' A Gallup survey of U.S. adults conducted in May 2023 found that nearly 70% of respondents said trans athletes should be allowed to compete only on sports teams that correspond with their birth sexes, up from 62% in 2021. Twenty-seven states already have laws, regulations or policies banning transgender students from participating in sports consistent with their gender identities, according to the Movement Advancement Project, an LGBTQ think tank. Former Harvard University swimmer Schuyler Bailar, who made history in 2015 as the first openly transgender athlete to compete on a Division I men's team, called the order 'absolutely devastating' and 'discriminatory.' 'This, I think, is a really horrible way to invite a lot of discrimination — not just against trans people — but also against all people in the women's category, because this is a policing of women's bodies in sports.' said Bailar, 28. Riley Gaines, a former college swimmer who has become an outspoken opponent of trans women in women's sports, applauded the trans sports ban on social media Tuesday and attended the signing ceremony Wednesday. Gaines wrote on X: 'Things could've been so different. Gender insanity was the final straw that brought a lot of moderates to the side of common sense. Specifically, I believe it was the issue of men in women's sports. I've been living in a state of gratitude everyday since Nov 5th. Praise God.' A number of LGBTQ rights organizations criticized the order after Trump signed it Wednesday. Carl Charles, a senior attorney for Lambda Legal, an LGBTQ legal advocacy organization, said the order "takes aim at K-12 and college athletes — a vanishingly small subset of people who on the whole, outside of a few sensationalized examples, have been participating in school sports programs for decades with absolutely no issues." "We are appalled, and in fact disgusted, at this administration's insatiable appetite for fearmongering about and relentless targeting of this most vulnerable population," Charles said. He added that multiple states that have enacted restrictions on trans athletes' participation have faced lawsuits. Courts have blocked state bans in Arizona, Idaho, Utah and West Virginia. New Hampshire's restriction has been blocked against the two trans plaintiffs who sued, and Montana's law has been permanently blocked from taking effect in colleges but not K-12 schools, according to the Movement Advancement Project. Before Wednesday's trans sports order, Trump signed three others that directly target transgender people. On Inauguration Day, he signed an order proclaiming that the government will recognize only two sexes, male and female, and that 'these sexes are not changeable.' He also signed orders barring transgender people from serving openly in the military and restricting access to gender-affirming care for trans people younger than 19 nationwide.
Yahoo
06-02-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Stitt in attendance as Trump signs order banning trans athletes from women's sports
Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt was in attendance as President Donald Trump signed an executive order in Washington D.C. on Wednesday that would bar transgender women and girls from playing on school sports teams that correspond with their gender identities. "We're here to finally bring common sense back to the country. He's going to ban men playing women sports," Stitt says in the video. Stitt also referenced the Oklahoma bill he signed into law in March 2022 that prevents transgender women from competing in women's sports teams in college and high school. The measure had numerous authors in both the Senate and the House and was often referred to as the "Save Women's Sports Act." On Wednesday, Trump signed a measure, called the 'No Men in Women's Sports Executive Order,' that would prohibit transgender women and girls from competing in female sports, NBC News reports. 'With this executive order, the war on women's sports is over,' Trump said from a podium at the White House, with dozens of women and girls standing behind him. The measure is the fourth executive order targeting transgender people Trump has signed since taking office, NBC News reports. Legal and civil rights experts have said it's not clear Trump has the authority to implement such broad restrictions immediately and unilaterally at the federal level. To formally prevent transgender students from playing school sports, Congress would likely have to amend the 1972 sex discrimination law known as Title IX, or the Department of Education would have to process new regulations. The question of whether transgender student-athletes have a right to play on their chosen team has remained unresolved by the courts, said Scott Schneider, an employment and education lawyer. For that reason, he said, the president's announcement won't have wide-ranging implications. "There is no real practical significance to it," he said, referring to the congresswoman's description of the planned executive order. "Absent a court decision in your jurisdiction, or a change in Title IX, the status quo is maintained." While many states already have restrictions in place to curb or block transgender athletes' participation in school sports, others provide explicit protections for them. The president and other Republicans in recent years have exaggerated the extent to which transgender youth, who make up only 1.4% of American teenagers according to federal survey data, participate in sports. A 2017 study of 17,000 young people found that about 1 in 10 transgender boys said they played sports, and the statistic is roughly the same for transgender girls. Still, conservatives including Rep. Nancy Mace, an outspoken opponent of transgender rights from South Carolina, have accused schools with transgender-inclusive policies of trading women's rights for "woke politics." "Women's sports exist for a reason – because biological differences matter," she said in a statement Tuesday. The GOP-controlled U.S. House of Representatives recently passed a bill seeking to accomplish the same objective as Trump's planned order. Curbing civil rights for transgender people came up often in Trump's 2024 presidential campaign, and after his victory, it became a point of contention for some Democrats as well. 'No serious country should be telling its children that they were born with the wrong gender,' Trump said in a campaign video two years ago. In the same video, he referred to gender-affirming care as 'chemical, physical and emotional mutilation of our youth.' The order this week comes after former President Joe Biden tried to bolster protections for queer and transgender students, who face disproportionate harassment and barriers to education, research shows. His administration's efforts, which involved rewriting Title IX, met conservative opposition at every turn. Just before Trump took office, a federal judge vacated the Biden administration's revisions to the regulations, which temporarily expanded the definition of sexual misconduct in schools in some states to formally include gender identity. This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Oklahoma Gov. Stitt in attendance as Trump signs trans athlete order
