The Justice Department convened on Monday its quarterly interagency meeting with LGBTQI+ community stakeholders. Members of the Office of the Attorney General and the LGBTQI+ Working Group of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division outlined relevant enforcement efforts across the department and highlighted actions to address discrimination in education and employment and combat hate crimes. Assistant Secretary of Education Catherine Lhamon of the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights also addressed the attendees and highlighted efforts to ensure safe learning environments at schools, colleges, and universities.
Justice Department leadership, including representatives from the Civil Rights Division, FBI, Community Relations Service, Office of Justice Programs, Office on Violence Against Women, Office for Victims of Crimes, and Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, heard from participating organizations about discrimination faced by LGBTQI+ students, parents, and teachers; barriers to access to gender-affirming medical care for LGBTQI+ people; health data privacy concerns; the need to increase intersex awareness; and hate crimes. Representatives from other government agencies, including the Departments of Education, Health and Human Services, Homeland Security, Veterans Affairs, Labor and State, as well as the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Environmental Protection Agency, National Endowment for the Arts and AmeriCorps were also in attendance.
Combating hate crimes and addressing claims of discrimination are among the division’s top priorities. Monday’s meeting represents the division’s ongoing efforts to engage with LGBTQI+ organizations and stakeholders on issues affecting LGBTQI+ communities.
The department has continued to prosecute hate crimes, including obtaining several life sentences for the perpetrator of the mass shooting at Club Q, an LGBTQI+ establishment in Colorado Springs. The department also filed a statement of interest in a case challenging a policy in Florida schools prohibiting teachers from using personal titles and pronouns inconsistent with their sex assigned at birth and a statement of interest in a case challenging a Georgia school district’s alleged retaliation against a teacher for her support of LGBTQI+ students and her opposition to the hostile environment they were allegedly subject to as a result of bullying and harassment.
These and other efforts by the Civil Rights Division can be found on its website at its LGBTQI+ Working Group page.
Members of the LGBTQI+ Working Group convene for the quarterly interagency meeting with LGBTQI+ community stakeholders.