The Department of Justice (DOJ) formally dropped its lawsuit with prejudice against Tennessee’s law protecting minors from harmful gender transition treatment procedures.
Under the Biden administration in 2023, the DOJ filed a complaint challenging the state’s Senate Bill (SB) 1. The DOJ said this law violated the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause.
“No person should be denied access to necessary medical care just because of their transgender status,” said former Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division.
However, on Monday, the Trump DOJ said it was dismissing its complaint because it does not believe challenging Tennessee’s law serves the public interest.
The DOJ’s dismissal comes after the Supreme Court upheld SB 1.
“Last month, the Supreme Court upheld a Tennessee state law protecting vulnerable children from genital mutilation and other so-called ‘gender-affirming care,’” said Attorney General Pamela Bondi. “That was the right decision, and this Department of Justice will no longer be in the business of attacking laws like Tennessee’s that protect children.”
Harmeet Dhillon, assistant attorney general of the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division, said America undid “one of the injustices the Biden administration inflicted upon the country by dismissing a lawsuit against a Tennessee law that protects minors from invasive and mutilating procedures.”
“The Justice Department will continue to fight to protect the health and welfare of our children and defend states that seek to ban these barbaric practices,” she added.
In the Court’s ruling, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in the majority opinion of United States v. Skrmetti that this case “carries with it the weight of fierce scientific and policy debates about the safety, efficacy, and propriety of medical treatments in an evolving field.”
Roberts stated the Equal Protection Clause “does not solve these disagreements.”
“The Court’s role is not ‘to judge the wisdom, fairness, or logic’ of SB1[…]but only to ensure that the law does not violate equal protection guarantees. It does not,” the chief justice wrote. “Questions regarding the law’s policy are thus appropriately left to the people, their elected representatives, and the democratic process.”
Currently, Tennessee is one of 25 states that protect minors from gender transition treatment procedures, the DOJ press release says.
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Zachery Schmidt is the digital editor of The Star News Network. Email tips to Zachery at [email protected].
Photo “Attorney General Pam Bondi” by the DOJ.
Great Job Pam Bondi & Harmeet Dillon.
If Vanderbilt University is behind this lawsuit, they should be lose any Federal Funding they receive.