Defending Education Files Federal Lawsuit Against State of CO for New “Anti-Discrimination” Law that Unconstitutionally Compels Speech

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Defending Education just filed a federal lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado against various Colorado state officials on behalf of its members, Do No Harm, Colorado Parent Advocacy Network, and Protect Kids Colorado, to stop the state from abridging the fundamental free speech rights of its citizens in response to Gov. Jared Polis signing HB 25-1312 into law last Friday.

Here are the key points:

  • Under this new law, failure to address transgender-identifying individuals using state mandated language (addressing them using biological pronouns or birth names instead) constitutes discrimination that is punishable by law.
  • This new law compels others to use language endorsing the State’s views on hotly contested political matters of sex and gender.

View the full lawsuit here.

Plaintiffs of the case released the following statements below.

Sarah Parshall Perry, Vice President of Defending Education:

“Colorado can’t seem to stop losing at the Supreme Court on constitutional challenges to its anti-discrimination laws. And yet, Governor Polis has nevertheless signed another patently unconstitutional iteration of its Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act—something that can only be described as an exercise of remarkable hubris. HB 25-1312 muzzles parents, doctors, and associations alike if they fail to hew to the government’s preferred gender orthodoxy. 

Our members must now alter their speech to endorse the State’s view that someone can change their sex to match an internal sense of so-called gender identity, even though they believe the opposite. Under the law, they are now required to refer to individuals using preferred pronouns and “chosen name[s]” instead of biological pronouns and birth names.

Members like ours and those of other plaintiff organizations stand to be silenced and we won’t stand for it. Defending Education looks forward to vindicating our members’ constitutional rights in court.”

Dr. Stanley Goldfarb, Chairman of Do No Harm:

“Do No Harm is proud to challenging Colorado’s absurd so-called anti-discrimination act. Abridging American’s constitutional right to freedom of expression in the name of radical gender ideology is wrong. We expect the court to reaffirm that the Constitution trumps progressive dogma.”