Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey (R) is suing members of a local school board for allegedly violating the state’s open meetings law by discussing a policy concerning the treatment of transgender students during a closed-door meeting, rather than at a public one.
In a lawsuit filed Wednesday against the Wentzville School District’s board of education, Bailey alleges members of the board “knowingly excluded parents from policy discussions about bathroom and locker room access for transgender students” during two private meetings over the summer.
The state attorney general’s case hinges on claims made by two directors of the district’s seven-member school board. The members in sworn affidavits submitted to Bailey’s office this week accused their colleagues of pressuring the board to vote on a policy to allow transgender students to use school restrooms and locker rooms consistent with their gender identity during meetings where members of the public were not present.
The decision to consider the policy during a closed discussion rather than a public one was made intentionally, the two board members allege in their respective statements. According to one affidavit, a board member during a July 25 meeting said opening up the discussion to the public would be a “lightning rod” for lawsuits.
The school board’s discussions “went beyond the scope of permissible exceptions” to Missouri’s open meetings law, which requires that government bodies discussing public business do so during meetings that are open to the public, Bailey wrote in his complaint.
“The Board should have opened discussions about the policy to the public in open-session public meetings,” he wrote.
Bailey said in a news release announcing the lawsuit Wednesday the complaint should send a message that “Missourians do not co-parent with the government” and his office “will enforce Missouri’s open meetings statute to protect parental rights.”
“Parents have the right to know who is in the bathroom with their children,” Bailey said. “Members of the Wentzville School Board knowingly and purposefully denied parents that right when they shrouded the transgender student bathroom usage policy in secrecy, directly violating the Open Meetings Law.”
Bailey’s office is seeking injunctive relief and $1,000 in monetary damages for each violation of Missouri’s open meetings law. A spokesperson for the Wentzville School District did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The case is not Bailey’s first foray into transgender issues, nor is it the first to rely on sworn testimony from “whistleblowers.”
In February, he announced his office had launched a multi-agency investigation into a St. Louis pediatric transgender clinic following accusations of malpractice by a former employee. However, the veracity of the account made by Jamie Reed, a former case manager at Washington University Transgender Center was called into question by reporting from outlets including the St. Louis Post Dispatch and the Missouri Independent.
And in March, Bailey issued an emergency rule that effectively banned transgender minors and certain adults in the state from accessing gender-affirming medical care. The rule, which was put into effect the following month, was abruptly terminated by Bailey’s office in May.
In June, Missouri’s Republican Gov. Mike Parson signed legislation prohibiting medical providers from administering gender-affirming care to transgender minors and some adults. That law took effect Sept. 1, after a judge rejected a request to temporarily block it.
