On a vote that largely followed party lines, the Senate on Thursday defeated a Republican attempt to overturn a USDA rule against discrimination in school food programs on the basis of gender identity and sexual orientation. “This whole exercise is nothing more than a political stunt using children, as I said before, to stoke up their culture wars,” said Senate Agriculture Committee chair Debbie Stabenow.
Kansas Sen. Roger Marshall, sponsor of a resolution of disapproval, S.J.Res.42, made the same charge against the Biden administration. “That’s right, this administration is using school lunches to attack our youth to implement their transgender policies.”
At issue was a May 2022 memo from the USDA on the application of food programs based on a 2020 Supreme Court decision, Bostock v. Clayton County, that determined the 1964 Civil Rights Act prohibits discrimination by employers against workers for being gay or transgender.
The Democrat-controlled Senate defeated the resolution, 50-47. Two Republicans, Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, joined Democrats in opposing the resolution, while Democrat Joe Manchin of West Virginia voted for it. Shortly before the roll call, the White House said President Biden would veto the resolution if it reached him. “No person in need of help should be turned away from a food bank or denied nutrition assistance just because of who they are or who they love,” said the White House in a statement.
Marshall and Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas attempted to link the USDA memo to heated controversies over transgender youth use of school bathrooms or competing in school sports. “It’s not fair to force little girls to compete against biological boys,” said Cruz. “The U.S. Department of Agriculture has told schools, ‘We will cut off your school lunch funding, we will take the food off of your plates and out of your mouths’ unless the schools comply with the Biden administration’s radical transgender policies.”
“This is about feeding children, period,” said Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin. The USDA memo is limited to food programs, and there have been no USDA enforcement actions on it, she said. “Not a single case. Zip, nada, zero.” By contrast, she said, the resolution was “a cruel effort to green-light discrimination.”
Nearly 30 million children eat meals each school day through the school lunch program, the largest of the USDA’s child nutrition programs, which include school breakfast, school milk, and child and adult day care food assistance. Together, the programs cost around $28 billion a year.