 — For the second time in about a month, a lawsuit challenging...){kind=link}
ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — For the second time in a few month, a lawsuit difficult Florida’s so-called “do not say homosexual” legislation restricting teaching on gender identity and sexual orientation in schools has been dismissed by a federal judge.
U.S. District Judge Wendy Berger in Orlando on Thursday dismissed a lawsuit brought by LGBTQ students, parents and their families — as well as several civil rights groups — and refused their request for a preliminary injunction to stop the law from being implemented. The judge gave the plaintiffs until Nov. 3 to file an amended lawsuit if they desired.
The lawsuit in Orlando named as defendants a number of Florida college boards charged with implementing the legislation, which bans classes on sexual orientation and gender id in kindergarten via third grade in addition to materials that isn’t deemed age-appropriate. The lawsuit claimed the legislation had violated the plaintiffs’ constitutional rights by chilling their skill to speak about their LGBTQ households at school settings. The choose disagreed.
“Plaintiffs have not directed this Court to any fact that would lead a reasonable person to believe that the law prohibits students from discussing their families and vacations at school or even on a school assignment, or that it would prohibit a parent from attending a school function in a ‘pride’ t-shirt or generally discussing their family structure in front of other people,” wrote Berger, a nominee of former President Donald Trump.
In response to considerations by the mother and father of a nonbinary center college scholar who had been plaintiffs and nervous the legislation would encourage extra bullying, the choose expressed sympathy. But Berger added, “it is simply a fact of life that many middle school students will face the criticism and harsh judgment of their peers.”
“Indeed, middle school children bully and belittle their classmates for a whole host of reasons, all of which are unacceptable, and many of which have nothing to do with a classmate’s gender identity,” the choose wrote.
About a month in the past, a federal choose in Tallahassee dismissed an analogous challenge to the legislation. In each lawsuits, the judges questioned the authorized standing of the plaintiffs, saying that they had failed to particularly determine how the legislation had harmed them.
A report launched in August by the Human Rights Campaign, one of many nation’s largest LGBTQ advocacy teams, and the Center for Countering Digital Hate mentioned that hateful references to gays, lesbians and different LGBTQ folks surged on-line after Florida’s Republican-dominated legislature handed the bill. The legislation was championed by Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican.
Civil rights teams that had helped the households file the lawsuit referred to as the choose’s determination “fallacious” and mentioned their combat in opposition to the legislation wasn’t over.
“The students and families at the heart of this case have experienced more bullying in the months since the law went into effect than ever before in their lives, but the court dismissed their experiences of bullying as ‘a fact of life,'” said Kell Olson, staff attorney at Lambda Legal, a civil rights group focused on LGBTQ rights. “The court’s decision defies decades of precedent establishing schools’ constitutional obligations to protect student speech, and to protect students from targeted bullying and harassment based on who they are.”
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