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The American Civil Liberties Union of Texas has teamed up with the Transgender Law Center and private firm Baker McKenzie to challenge the constitutionality of the state’s new anti-DEI law, Senate Bill 12.
The lawsuit was filed in federal court on Thursday, just days before the law goes into effect on Monday, September 1.
A student from Houston ISD, a teacher from Plano ISD, the GSA Network, which has a number of LGBTQ+ student clubs in Texas high schools, and the advocacy organization Students Engaged in Advancing Texas are named plaintiffs.
Texas Education Commissioner Mike Morath, Houston ISD, Katy ISD, and Plano ISD are named defendants. The Texas Education Agency, Katy ISD, and Plano ISD did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the lawsuit. A spokesperson for Houston ISD said the district “will not discuss matters under pending litigation.”
Students Engaged in Advancing Texas, or SEAT, is one of the plaintiffs in the suit.
In a statement, SEAT Executive Director Cameron Samuels said they’re suing “on behalf of students across Texas to ensure that our schools remain places where all students are safe, supported, and given the best opportunity to thrive.”
“This law isn’t about improving education — it’s about weaponizing it,” Samuels said. “S.B. 12 seeks to erase students’ identities and make it impossible for teachers, parents, and volunteers to tell the truth about the history and diversity of our state.”
“Senate Bill 12 is a very sprawling law that does a whole number of things. This lawsuit challenges four unconstitutional aspects of Senate Bill 12,” said Attorney Brian Klosterboer with the ACLU of Texas in an interview with TPR.
Klosterboer said the four provisions they’re challenging in the lawsuit are:
1.) a ban on LGBTQ+ student clubs
2.) a ban on school programs and activities that mention race, ethnicity, gender identity, or sexual orientation
3.) a section that prohibits “assistance with social transitioning”
4.) a section prohibiting school employees or third parties from providing information on gender identity or sexual orientation
“We argue that these four provisions are vague. They discriminate based on viewpoint by silencing and suppressing the voices of students, parents and educators who want to discuss topics of race, gender, identity and sexual orientation, and we're asking the court to block these parts of the law, because they will impose grave harm on students and parents and educators across Texas,” Klosterboer said.
Klosterboer said the ACLU of Texas has also asked for a preliminary injunction to block those four elements while the case is ongoing, but the earliest that could take effect would be after a hearing.
“It will take at least a few weeks, or possibly even a couple months, for the court to hold a hearing and issue a ruling,” Klosterboer said. “In the meantime, unfortunately, the law will be in effect.”
“The law is so vague, and that's one of the central legal challenges that makes it unconstitutional,” he added. “Unfortunately, we've seen some school districts even going beyond the text itself, saying things like trans students cannot be called by their affirming names and pronouns even with parental permission. That is nowhere to be seen in the law itself. But because the social transition ban piece is so broad and vague, it has a massive chilling effect where schools and educators are nervous to even acknowledge the existence of transgender students and just to treat their students with respect.”
Klosterboer said Plano ISD, one of the defendants in the lawsuit, has issued guidance to teachers telling them they have to use the name and pronouns on a student’s birth certificate. North East ISD in San Antonio has also issued similar guidance to school employees, according to reporting and documents obtained by TPR.
“The districts that are disregarding parents’ rights (to ask the district to use their child’s chosen name and pronouns) are probably on the worst footing legally, because now they're discriminating against their students and disregarding the wishes of the parents, which are specifically in other parts of SB 12 and supposed to be followed,” Klosterboer said.
Still, Klosterboer said their lawsuit argues that SB 12’s segment on social transitioning is vague and that districts should not be telling staff to only use pronouns and names listed on a student’s birth certificate even if they allow exceptions with parental permission.
“It's important for school districts to look carefully at the text of the law itself and also to remember their other obligations,” Klosterboer said, pointing to the Texas Educators Code of Ethics, which says “educators shall not reveal confidential information concerning students.”
“If a teacher is deadnaming a student in class, that is putting a target on their back and outing them often as trans, especially for people who have been using an affirming name for years and years,” Klosterboer said.
“Also, federal law prohibits teachers from discriminating against any student based on sex or engaging in gender stereotyping, and that's essentially what these school districts are now requiring some teachers to do: to engage in gender stereotyping,” he added. “If a cisgender student says, ‘Okay, I'm changing my name from Christopher to Chris, and this teacher says, Okay, that's cool.’ But then another student says, ‘I'm going from Lisa to Tom;’ that's gender stereotyping. The teacher is being required to make a subjective judgment call, essentially discriminating based on sex.”
Klosterboer said the provisions challenged by the lawsuit also amount to censorship and violate the First Amendment.
Although the court case is just beginning, Klosterboer said similar lawsuits challenging similar laws in other states have met with success, including in Mississippi and Iowa.
The ACLU of Texas is also still seeking plaintiffs to add to the case.
