Monday, November 29, 2021

22 States and D.C. support Drew Adams in St. Johns County transgender case. (WJCT/NSOF)

On "Friday, ... 22 states and the District of Columbia filed a brief at the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that sided with Adams and said the school-board policy violates constitutional equal-protection rights and Title IX, a federal law that bars sex-based discrimination.

Good points made by amicus briefs. However, they should refer to Drew Adams as "Mr. Adams," and not "Adams." Courts need to treat living breathing plaintiffs as people, with honorofics like "Mr." rather than last-naming them. Small point, perhaps, but one that raises the consciousness of judges and lawyers when you explain it to them. 

From WJCT: 


States clash over St. Johns County transgender case

Drew Adams.jpg
Ron Harris
/
AP
Transgender student Drew Adams speaks with reporters outside of the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals on Thursday, Dec. 5, 2019, in Atlanta.

A lawsuit about whether a transgender male student should have been allowed to use boys’ bathrooms at a Northeast Florida high school has become a battleground for states across the country.

In two briefs filed at a federal appeals court, 40 states and the District of Columbia have chosen sides in the case stemming from a St. Johns County School Board policy that prevented Drew Adams from using boys’ bathrooms at Nease High School.

The latest salvo came Friday, when 22 states and the District of Columbia filed a brief at the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that sided with Adams and said the school-board policy violates constitutional equal-protection rights and Title IX, a federal law that bars sex-based discrimination.

“The board’s policy needlessly denies Adams something most people take for granted: the ability to use a public restroom consistent with one’s lived experience of one’s own gender,” the brief said. “The policy singles out transgender students like Adams and forces them either to forgo restroom use or to choose between two other detrimental options: using common restrooms corresponding to their sex assigned at birth or using special single-user restrooms (i.e., those with no specific gender designation).”

Signing on to the brief were the attorneys general in New York, Washington, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia and the District of Columbia.

Friday’s filing came a month after attorneys general in 18 other states filed a brief that backed the St. Johns County policy and disputed it violated federal law. That brief also pointed to broader implications of the dispute.

“The restroom issue that is presented in this case and similar issues that will inevitably follow involving locker rooms, athletic teams and pronouns involve sensitive policy considerations and myriad competing interests,” the Oct. 26 brief said. “Allowing a transgender student to use the locker room that corresponds to the student’s gender identity has repercussions for other students who may lose the ability to change clothing in private, without being exposed to members of the opposite sex.

"Likewise, allowing a transgender student to compete on an athletic team consistent with the student’s gender identity has repercussions for other students who may lose competitive opportunities or be subjected to an increased risk of injury. And allowing a transgender student to dictate what pronouns other students and school employees must use has significant repercussions for the First Amendment rights of those other students and employees.”

Signing on to the brief were attorneys general in Tennessee, Arizona, Arkansas, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas and West Virginia.

Adams was born a biological female but in eighth grade told his parents he was a transgender male, according to court documents. The lawsuit, which Adams and his mother filed in 2017, stemmed from Nease High School requiring Adams to use a gender-neutral, single-stall bathroom or girls’ bathrooms. Adams graduated from the school as the lawsuit continued.

U.S. District Judge Timothy Corrigan, who is based in Jacksonville, ruled in favor of Adams in 2018, prompting the school board to take the case to the Atlanta-based appeals court.

A panel of the court ruled in favor of Adams in July, but the full court subsequently vacated the ruling and said it would hear the case — a move known as holding an “en banc’ hearing. Arguments are expected to be held the week of Feb. 21 in Atlanta.

In addition to the filings by the states, the case has drawn friend-of-the-court briefs from numerous organizations across the country — an indication of the high profile and controversy surrounding transgender-rights issues

In the brief filed Friday, the states supporting Adams said they “share a strong interest in seeing that federal law is properly applied to protect transgender people from discrimination.”

“The unwritten policy of the school board of St. Johns County, Florida, barring Adams from using the boys’ bathroom violates federal statutory and constitutional protections that prohibit such invidious discrimination,” the brief said. “The policy violates Title IX by denying transgender boys and girls access to the same common restrooms that other boys and girls may use. Further, because the policy fails to advance any legitimate interest such as protecting public safety or personal privacy, its only function is to stigmatize a particular group, which violates equal protection.”

But the brief filed last month supporting the St. Johns County board said the “age-old practice of assigning students to restrooms based on biological sex does not violate the Equal Protection Clause or Title IX.”

“Because Congress has not prohibited educational institutions from assigning students to restrooms based on biological sex, this court should leave to Congress and the political process any decision to make a different policy choice,” the brief said.

Florida Statewide Prosecutor Has Jurisdiction Over Multi-District Crimes

Here's the guide to contacting our Florida Statewide Prosecutor, Mr. Nicholas B. Cox, whose jurisdiction extends to possible crimes spanning two or more judicial districts, like the Airport's false statements about its Executive Director's using the Airport's lawyer and airport property in incorporating a limited liability corporation that violated his no-moonlighting clause in his employment contract.: 


Office of Statewide Prosecution

Office of Statewide ProsecutionThe Attorney General's Office of Statewide Prosecution is directed by the Florida Constitution to prosecute crimes that impact two or more judicial circuits in the State of Florida. Working regularly with state and federal counterparts, the office focuses on complex, often large scale, organized criminal activity. The Office of Statewide Prosecution is authorized to act throughout Florida and works closely with law enforcement and State Attorneys to coordinate the prosecutions of multi-circuit violations of State law. 

The Statewide Prosecutor is appointed by the Attorney General from a list of nominees selected by the Florida Supreme Court Judicial Nominating Commission. The Statewide Prosecutor serves a term of four years and acts as the agency head for eight offices throughout the state.

Florida’s Constitution recognizes the importance of victims in the judicial proceedings, and the Office of Statewide Prosecution ensures that crime victims’ rights are protected during these proceedings. Below are links to help crime victims and others involved in prosecutions by the Office of Statewide Prosecution. The statuses of the court’s proceedings are available below as well. 

Each year the Statewide Prosecutor submits a report to the Governor, the Attorney General, and Florida’s Legislature. Those reports highlight successes and outline goals for the years ahead.

Crime victims are the heart of each case prosecuted by the Office. Florida’s Constitution recognizes the importance of victims in the judicial proceedings. Below are links to help crime victims and, if you are involved in a case being prosecuted by the Office, you can check on the status of the court’s proceedings.

Links

OSP Bureaus
Tallahassee Office
PL-01, The Capitol
Tallahassee, FL 32399-1050
(850)414-3300
SC 994-3700
Fax (850)922-6191
SC Fax 292-6191
Statewide Prosecutor: Nicholas B. Cox
West Palm Beach Office
Flagler Waterview Building
1515 N. Flagler Drive, Suite 900
West Palm Beach, FL 33401
(561)837-5000
SC 252-5000
Fax (561)837-5107
SC 252-5107
Chief: Stephanie Tew
Jacksonville Office
1300 Riverplace Blvd., Suite 405
Jacksonville, FL 32207
(904)348-2720
SC 870-2720
Fax (904)348-2783
SC Fax 870-2783
Chief: Kelsey Bledsoe

Orlando Office
Century Plaza
135 West Central Boulevard, Suite 1000
Orlando, FL 32801
(407)245-0893
SC 344-0893
Fax (407)245-0356
SC Fax 344-0356
Chief: Robert Finkbeiner

Tampa Office
Concourse Center 4
3507 Frontage Road, Suite 200
Tampa, FL 33607
(813)287-7960
SC 585-7960
Fax (813)281-5520
SC Fax 514-4360
Chief: Diane Croff

Ft. Lauderdale Office
The 110 Tower
110 S.E. 6th St., Suite 900
Ft. Lauderdale, FL 33301
954-712-4600
SC 420-4600
Fax (954)712-4958
SC Fax 420-4958
Deputy Statewide Prosecutor: Julie Chaikin Hogan

Ft. Myers Office
4575 Via Royale Corporate Center
4575 Via Royale
Fort Myers, FL 33919
(239)338-2440
SC 748-2440
Fax (239)338-2341
SC 748-2341
Chief: Michael-Anthony Pica

Miami Office
Suntrust International Center
One S.E. 3rd Avenue, Suite 900
Miami, FL 33131
(786) 792-6196
Fax (305)377-5927
SC Fax 452-5927

New Federal Magistrate Sworn In, Assigned to St. Johns County Gay Pride Proclamation Case

On November 4, 2021, the new U.S. Magistrate Judge for the Middle District of Florida was sworn in, replacing retired Magistrate Judge James Klindt. 

Magistrate Judge Laura Lothman Lambert was on November 16 assigned to the case of Bloomberg v. Blocker, the St. Johns County Board of County Commissionsers Gay Pride Proclamation case. Docket sheet shows County motion to dismiss still pending, three months after response filed by First Amendment plaintiff Sara Bloomberg's counsel, Rook Ringer.

From Jax Daily Record:


JAX DAILY RECORDTUESDAY, NOV. 9, 202104:50 AM EST

Laura Lothman Lambert sworn in as U.S. magistrate judge

She succeeds James Klindt, who retired Oct. 31 after 14 years on the bench.
by: Max Marbut Associate Editor

U.S. District Judge Harvey Schlesinger swore in Laura Lothman Lambert on Nov. 4 as the U.S. District Court Middle District of Florida’s new U.S. magistrate judge.

She is in the Jacksonville Division, where she previously was Schlesinger’s law clerk and an assistant U.S. attorney.

Lambert also clerked for U.S. Circuit Judge Phyllis Kravitch of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit and was a trial attorney in the Constitutional Torts Section of the Department of Justice in Washington, D.C.

Most recently, Lambert directed the Juvenile Division of the State Attorney’s Office for the 4th Judicial Circuit.

A formal investiture will be scheduled later.

Lambert succeeds U.S. Magistrate Judge James Klindt, who retired Oct. 31 after 14 years on the federal bench.

Klindt started his service in the federal courthouse in Jacksonville by clerking for the late U.S. District Judge Howell Melton. He then became an assistant U.S. attorney, becoming acting U.S attorney in 2007.

Klindt will continue as a recall U.S. magistrate judge. 

Congresswoman Carrie Meek, R.I.P. (NY TImes)

Pioneering Miami, Florida Congressman Carrie Meek has died. Her son Kendrick visited here when he ran for U.S. Senator, speaking at our Solomon Calhoun Center. 

From The New York Times: 


Carrie P. Meek, 5-Term Florida Representative, Dies at 95

She was the first Black person to represent the state in the House since Reconstruction, and she fought for programs to create jobs.

Representative Carrie Meek with Congressional Black Caucus members opposing President George W. Bush’s tax plan in 2001. “My first priority in Congress is to develop job-producing programs,” she said early in her time in Washington.
Credit...Tom Williams/Roll Call, via Getty Images

Carrie P. Meek, who was spurred by memories of childhood discrimination and inspired by her heritage as she rose to political power in her native Florida and later in Washington, died on Sunday at her home in Miami. She was 95. 

Her death was confirmed by Adam Sharon, a family spokesman. He did not specify a cause.

In 1992, Ms. Meek became the first Black person elected to Congress in Florida since Reconstruction. Her election was assured when the 10-term Democratic incumbent, Bill Lehman, decided to retire and Ms. Meek captured the Democratic nomination for the newly reapportioned district. She ran unopposed in the general election.

She soon made it clear that she had no desire to take the “go along and get along” path followed by some Washington newcomers. She lobbied for and won a coveted seat on the Appropriations Committee, a highly unusual achievement for a freshman lawmaker.

She used that seat to push for federal aid for the section of her district devastated by Hurricane Andrew in 1992. She also lobbied for money for job-creating programs and to encourage African Americans to open their own businesses.


“My first priority in Congress is to develop job-producing programs,” she said in an interview with The Washington Post weeks after her election. “Whenever I’m out in the community, people first thing they come up to me, Carrie, what about jobs, when are we going to get jobs?”

Image
Ms. Meek and Ron Brown, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, meeting residents of the Liberty City area of Miami in 1989. Ms. Meek lived in Liberty City during her tenure in Congress.
Credit...Kathy Willens/Associated Press

Her 17th Congressional District covered much of Miami, and her constituents included many Black people and immigrants from Haiti, Jamaica and the Bahamas, as well as Koreans and Arabs. The district included the Liberty City area of Miami, the epicenter of a race riot that left scores of people dead after white police officers killed a Black man. Ms. Meek lived in Liberty City during her time in Congress.
While pushing for money for her district, she remained skeptical, even cynical, about many Washington programs aimed at helping poor Black people. She complained that too much money was siphoned off by white-owned companies that bailed when federal dollars dried up. She was also disdainful of some Black administrators (“ghetto hustlers,” she called them) who exploited programs while doing little to help those who needed help.
After Republicans captured the House in 1994, Ms. Meek was ousted from the Appropriations Committee. In early 1995, she attacked the new speaker, Newt Gingrich of Georgia, who had accepted a $4.5 million advance for two books from a publishing company owned by the media magnate Rupert Murdoch.
After much criticism, including some from fellow Republicans, Mr. Gingrich announced late in 1994 that he was giving up the advance. But Ms. Meek still seized on the episode.
“How much the speaker earns has grown much more dependent upon how hard his publishing house hawks his book,” Ms. Meek said on the House floor. “Which leads me to the question of exactly who does this speaker really work for … Is it the American people or his New York publishing house?”
Republicans hooted her down and struck her remarks from the Congressional Record.
Ms. Meek railed against tax cuts that the Republican-controlled House approved in June 1997, asserting that Republicans were trying to balance the budget “on the backs of America’s working poor, elderly and infirm.”
“Today the House voted to rob from the poor so that tomorrow the majority can help the rich,” she said.
She was willing to reach across the aisle on some issues. For instance, she worked with Republicans to change warnings on cigarette labels to reflect the fact that more Black people than white people suffer from smoking-related diseases. She also worked with some Republicans to increase spending for research on lupus and for grants for college students with poor reading skills because of learning disabilities.
Before going to Washington, she served in the Florida House of Representatives from 1979 to 1983 and in the State Senate from 1983 to 1993. She was the first Black woman elected to that chamber.
Richard Langley, a conservative Republican state senator whose politics were the polar opposite of hers, once called Ms. Meek “a nice, well-meaning Christian lady.” But a moment later, as though regretting his kind remarks, he called her “another tax-and-spend liberal” and a big mouth.

“If you opposed her, you were a racist,” Mr. Langley told The Washington Post. “She saw everything in terms of Black and white.”

If indeed she saw the world that way, she had good reason.

Image
Ms. Meek introducing Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton at a campaign event in Miami in 2007.
Credit...Lynn Sladky/Associated Press

Carrie Pittman was born on April 29, 1926, in Tallahassee, Fla., the youngest of 12 children of Willie and Carrie Pittman. Her parents began their life together as sharecroppers. Her father later became a caretaker and her mother a laundress and owner of a boardinghouse. Her grandmother had been a slave in Lilly, Ga., known as Miss Mandy.

Years later, Ms. Pittman said that growing up as the baby in her family was “just a great life, the best you could imagine.”

“The only shadow in my life was the segregation,” she said. “The worst kind of segregation.” That meant not being allowed to try on shoes in a shoe store, and playing with other Black children in a vacant lot while white children had a park with ball fields and a pool.

She was a sprinter in high school and played basketball both in high school and at Florida A&M, a historically Black college in Tallahassee, where she earned a degree in biology and physical education in 1946.

At the time, Black students were banned from Florida graduate programs, so she enrolled at the University of Michigan, where she received a master’s degree in public health and physical education.


Before entering politics, Ms. Meek taught at Bethune Cookman, a historically Black college in Daytona Beach, and at Florida A&M. In 1961, she moved to the newly opened Miami-Dade Junior College, which initially had separate campuses for Black students and white students. She taught health and physical education and remained at the college for three decades in teaching and administrative posts.

In 2000, the presidential race was undecided weeks after Election Day because of the excruciatingly close popular vote in Florida. Ms. Meek complained that numerous African Americans and Haitian Americans among her constituents had tried to vote but were turned away. Some were told they did not have valid identification, while others said they felt intimidated, Ms. Meek said.

“They are frustrated Black people who worked so hard for the right to vote, they died for the right to vote,” Ms. Meek said. “And we have seen a presidential election here where people had that right denied, through intimidation. Some Haitians are saying this is worse than an election in Haiti. What kind of superpower has an election like this?”

In the end, George W. Bush won the presidency over Vice President Al Gore when the United States Supreme Court halted the recount of the popular vote in Florida, giving Mr. Bush Florida’s 25 Electoral College votes.

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Ms. Meek with her son Kendrick Meek when he ran for a United States Senate seat in 2010.  He succeeded Ms. Meek in Congress and served four terms.
Credit...Wilfredo Lee/Associated Press

Ms. Meek’s two former husbands, both of whom she divorced, are dead. Survivors include a son, Kendrick, who served in the Florida House of Representatives and the State Senate and was elected in 2002 to the congressional seat being vacated by his mother. He served four terms before giving up his seat in an unsuccessful run for the Senate.

She is also survived by two daughters, Sheila Davis Kinui and Lucia Davis-Raiford; seven grandchildren; and five great-grandchildren.



Before entering politics, Ms. Meek taught at Bethune Cookman, a historically Black college in Daytona Beach, and at Florida A&M. In 1961, she moved to the newly opened Miami-Dade Junior College, which initially had separate campuses for Black students and white students. She taught health and physical education and remained at the college for three decades in teaching and administrative posts.

In 2000, the presidential race was undecided weeks after Election Day because of the excruciatingly close popular vote in Florida. Ms. Meek complained that numerous African Americans and Haitian Americans among her constituents had tried to vote but were turned away. Some were told they did not have valid identification, while others said they felt intimidated, Ms. Meek said.

“They are frustrated Black people who worked so hard for the right to vote, they died for the right to vote,” Ms. Meek said. “And we have seen a presidential election here where people had that right denied, through intimidation. Some Haitians are saying this is worse than an election in Haiti. What kind of superpower has an election like this?”

In the end, George W. Bush won the presidency over Vice President Al Gore when the United States Supreme Court halted the recount of the popular vote in Florida, giving Mr. Bush Florida’s 25 Electoral College votes.

Image
Ms. Meek with her son Kendrick Meek when he ran for a United States Senate seat in 2010.  He succeeded Ms. Meek in Congress and served four terms.
Credit...Wilfredo Lee/Associated Press

Ms. Meek’s two former husbands, both of whom she divorced, are dead. Survivors include a son, Kendrick, who served in the Florida House of Representatives and the State Senate and was elected in 2002 to the congressional seat being vacated by his mother. He served four terms before giving up his seat in an unsuccessful run for the Senate.


She is also survived by two daughters, Sheila Davis Kinui and Lucia Davis-Raiford; seven grandchildren; and five great-grandchildren.


In announcing in 2002 that she would not run for a sixth term, Ms. Meek emphasized that she had not grown tired of Congress.

“I love it still,” she told The Miami Herald. “But at age 76, understandably, some of my abilities have diminished. I don’t have the same vigor that I had at age 65. I have the fire, but I don’t have the physical ability. So it’s time.”

David Stout, a reporter and editor at The New York Times for 28 years, died in 2020. Vimal Patel contributed reporting.