Stop using school lunch money as gender leverage, congressman asks

(The Center Square) – One Wisconsin congressman wants Congress to stop the Biden Administration from using school lunch money to push schools to accept new transgender policies.

Republican U.S. Congressman Glenn Grothman on Monday filed what he’s calling the Stop WOKE (Wrongs to Our Kids’ Educational) Meals Act.

“Nobody dreamed that someday school lunches would be used as leverage to force school districts to do what the transgender lobby wants,” Grothmman said. “Nevertheless, the Biden Administration’s new rule opens the door to letting children go hungry if schools do not adhere to his extreme gender ideology.”

Grothman’s plan would have Congress stop the Department of Agriculture from withholding school lunch money from schools that keep distinctions between biological boys and biological girls.

“This mandate from the Administration is a way to strongarm schools into falling in line with the ‘woke’ left’s worldview and it is disgraceful. If a school, parent, student, or teacher believes that there are biological differences between males and females, too bad, because their federal funding may be cut off if they don’t obey this mandate,” Grothman said. “This is why you should never want new federal programs.”

Grothman’s plan is certainly doomed in the current Congress, but he insists he will proceed anyway.

Back in May, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced it will interpret federal anti-discrimination laws in education under Title IX of the 1972 Education Amendments to include “sexual orientation and gender identity.”

The Biden administration has yet to officially order Title IX restrictions be placed on school meal funding.