To promote a transgender agenda, the Biden administration ignored a court injunction to pursue a civil-rights complaint alleging “discrimination on the basis of gender identity” against Owasso Public Schools in Oklahoma, according to recently revealed whistleblower testimony.

On Feb. 8, 2024, a 16-year-old Owasso student, Dagny Ellis Benedict, committed suicide one day after a fight at school. Because the girl had recently begun calling herself Nex Benedict and identifying as “nonbinary,” activists claimed Benedict’s death was the result of anti-transgender bullying and a supposedly hostile environment created by Oklahoma law barring males from using the girls’ bathrooms (and vice versa) in Oklahoma public schools.

However, the associated law-enforcement investigation found that Benedict initiated the Feb. 7 school fight, that it was not prompted by anti-transgender bullying, and that there was no indication the state’s bathroom law played any role in the fight.

Subsequent reporting indicated Benedict was the victim of childhood sexual abuse at age nine and suffered from mental-health problems.

Despite the findings of Oklahoma law-enforcement investigators, the Human Rights Campaign filed a federal complaint demanding that Owasso schools be investigated for alleged civil-rights violations based on Benedict’s purported identification as nonbinary.

The Human Rights Campaign advocates for “all LGBTQ+ people, and particularly those of us who are trans,” according to its website.

The Biden administration U.S. Department of Education complied with the Human Rights Campaign’s wishes, launching an investigation of Owasso schools.

But whistleblower testimony indicates the Biden administration violated a court order in the process.

On Jan. 20, 2021, President Joe Biden issued Executive Order 13988, “Preventing and Combating Discrimination on the Basis of Gender Identity or Sexual Orientation.” The order required that gender identity be treated as a protected class under federal Title IX law, which was originally passed to prevent discrimination based on sex. Effectively, under Biden’s order, women who objected to men being in their bathrooms or locker rooms and showers could be prosecuted for discrimination against the “transgender”-identifying males.

On Aug. 30, 2021, two-fifths of all U.S. states, including Oklahoma, brought suit in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee, alleging the Biden administration’s guidance exceeded the U.S. Department of Education’s authority under Title IX, and arguing that the procedural requirements of the Administrative Procedure Act had not been met.

On July 15, 2022, U.S. District Judge Charles E. Atchley, Jr., issued an order granting the plaintiff states’ Motion for Preliminary Injunction.

According to whistleblower testimony from Timothy Mattson, chief attorney for the Kansas City Office (Region VII) of the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR), the agency violated Atchley’s injunction when it pursued the investigation of Owasso schools.

Mattson’s testimony became public as part of Empower Oversight Whistleblowers & Research’s ongoing legal battle with the U.S. Department of Education

Empower Oversight Whistleblowers & Research is “dedicated to enhancing independent oversight of government and corporate wrongdoing” and “works to help insiders document and report corruption to the proper authorities while also seeking to hold authorities accountable to act on those reports,” according to the group’s website.

On Feb. 2, 2024, Mattson received an email from an enforcement director forwarding a complaint from the Human Rights Campaign regarding the Benedict case at Owasso High School. That email originated with a deputy assistant secretary who requested that the Kansas City Office (Region VII) prepare notification letters no later than Feb. 27, 2024, opening a complaint for investigation.

In response, Mattson proposed that the case be conducted as an investigation focused on alleged discrimination based on sex stereotypes, which has long been allowed under Title IX law and conformed with testimony in the Owasso case, which indicated the school bathroom fight was tied to students mocking the way Benedict dressed.

However, officials in the civil-rights division pushed for the investigation to be conducted as a review of discrimination based on gender identity.

Mattson eventually sent an email to agency officials warning them that would violate the court order, writing that the “letters you have sent me today for my signature” would “clearly violate the injunction.”

“The hardest part of my job as Chief Attorney is giving advice that I know people are not looking for,” Mattson wrote. “Usually, it involves asking staff to rewrite letters or telling them a case needs more investigation. But today I have to recommend that OCR not issue the proposed notification letters because doing so would violate the law.”

Because the Owasso case was “high profile,” Mattson noted that the associated notification letters “will surely be presented to the Eastern District of Tennessee sooner than later.”

“Under oath, at a hearing, I would have to admit that signing these letters constitutes a knowing violation of the law,” Mattson wrote. “As an officer of the court, I cannot violate a court order and cannot ask anyone on staff at OCR-Kansas City to do so either.”

On March 3, 2024, the Biden administration notified Owasso it was pursuing the investigation as a review of alleged discrimination based on gender identity. The notification letters were signed and issued by the Chicago Office (Region V), rather than Mattson’s office in Kansas City.

[Photo courtesy of Owasso Public Schools Facebook page]