When he’s not preoccupied with his race for U.S. Senate, Attorney General Ken Paxton has found time to take on another issue of great importance to him: what bathrooms students at public schools use.
On the morning of Friday, March 6, Paxton announced that he’d sent a letter to Austin Independent School District warning that the district could be fined $5,000 a day for violations of a new Texas law restricting the public bathrooms transgender people can use. An Austin ISD parent complained to the AG’s office last month, claiming that a student, whose transgender status is unknown, used the girl’s bathroom at Austin High School.
Conservative group Texas Values publicized the complaint in February. In the complaint, a parent (whose name is redacted) alleges her daughter saw “a male student” using the girl’s bathroom at Austin High School in January. The parent emailed Austin ISD to notify administrators that the school was violating Senate Bill 8, the Texas Women’s Privacy Act (also known as the “bathroom bill”) passed by the Texas Legislature last summer. The parent emailed again twice in early February but claimed to have never received any response from Austin ISD…