www.thecentersquare.com – By Bethany Blankley | The Center Square contributor – (The Center Square – ) 2025-05-21 14:09:00
A North Texas district court ruled in favor of Texas in its lawsuit against the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) over Biden-era bathroom and pronoun policies. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton argued that EEOC guidance, which redefined “sex” under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, was unlawful. The guidance required employers to accommodate “gender identity” preferences, such as bathroom and pronoun use. The court struck down both the 2021 and 2024 EEOC guidance, ruling it exceeded statutory authority and contradicted Supreme Court rulings. Paxton hailed the decision as a victory for common sense and the rule of law.
(The Center Square ) – A north Texas district court has ruled in favor of Texas in a lawsuit brought against the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission over its Biden-era Enforcement Guidance on bathroom and pronoun policies.
Last year, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sued the EEOC, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, former U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland and other federal officials to block an EEOC guidance that redefined the meaning of “sex” in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, The Center Square reported.
The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court Northern District of Texas Amarillo Division, the same court where Paxton filed a lawsuit in 2021 to block similar EEOC guidance, which the court struck down.
In 2021, the EEOC issued guidance requiring employers to allow exceptions for employees with stated “gender preferences and identities” to use bathrooms, locker rooms, showers, dress codes and personal pronouns contrary to their biological sex. Texas argued the guidance was unlawful and increased the scope of liability for all employers, including the state of Texas, which employed roughly 140,000 people in September 2022, according to the state comptroller’s office.
The lawsuit was later amended to include the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services as a defendant after the agency promulgated a new rule threatening to cut federal funding to states that prohibit “sex-change” procedures on minors and classify the procedure as child abuse. Biden administration guidances would have allowed biological males to use women’s facilities and abolished sex-specific workplace dress codes.
The court struck down both rules, vacated the 2021 guidance and issued a binding declaratory judgment between the EEOC and Texas.
A similar ruling was issued on Thursday by U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk. The 2024 guidance sought to redefine “discrimination” to include “gender identity,” opening up private and state employers to lawsuits if they didn’t adopt sweeping “transgender inclusive policies” and comply with “pronoun police,” Paxton argued.
“The Biden Administration unlawfully tried to twist federal law into a tool for advancing radical gender ideology by attempting to force employers to adopt ‘transgender’ policies or risk being sued,” Paxton said. “The federal government has no right to force Texans to play along with delusions or ignore biological reality in our workplaces. This is a great victory for common sense and the rule of law.”
Kacsmaryk’s 34-page ruling says the EEOC exceeded its statutory authority and its guidance was “inconsistent with the text, history, and tradition of Title VII and recent Supreme Court precedent” and vacated it.
He also rejected EEOC’s arguments, said it misread the Supreme Court’s ruling in Bostock v Clayton County, “cited no binding authority for its metastasized definition of ‘sex,’” and contravened Title VII by defining discriminatory harassment to include transgender bathroom, pronoun and dress preferences. He also said if Congress wanted to redefine “sex” in Title VII to include “sexual orientation” or “gender identity” it would have. “But it did not,” he wrote. “Congress has the power to amend statutes to add accommodations, EEOC does not. Yet that’s exactly what the enforcement guidance does.”
Kacsmaryk also listed sections of the guidance that he said are unlawful and vacated them.
The Trump administration EEOC is unlikely to appeal the ruling.
Note: The following A.I. based commentary is not part of the original article, reproduced above, but is offered in the hopes that it will promote greater media literacy and critical thinking, by making any potential bias more visible to the reader –Staff Editor.
Political Bias Rating: Right-Leaning
The article predominantly frames the EEOC and Biden administration policies regarding gender identity and workplace accommodations in a critical light, consistent with conservative perspectives on these issues. The use of phrases like “radical gender ideology,” “delusions,” and “pronoun police,” which are direct quotes from Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, emphasizes a dismissive stance towards transgender-inclusive policies. The selection and presentation of legal arguments and rulings that invalidate federal guidance on gender identity also align with conservative legal interpretations. While the article reports facts about court rulings and legal disputes, the language and framing favor the Texas government’s viewpoint and legislative conservatism, contributing to a right-leaning ideological perspective rather than neutral, objective journalism.
SUMMARY: On July 4, Krista Parker’s 6-year-old son, DJ, nearly drowned at Paragon Casino Resort in Louisiana. Despite DJ’s fear of water, he suddenly went lifeless by the pool. Krista and her husband performed CPR and mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, eventually reviving him as water was expelled from his lungs. DJ was taken to Rapides Women’s and Children’s Hospital, where he recounted a near-death experience of seeing angels and God, strengthening his family’s faith. He now wants to be named Avir, meaning “air” in Hebrew, reflecting his experience. DJ suffered no lasting physical harm, emphasizing the importance of CPR training and water safety.
feeds.texastribune.org – By Terri Langford, Dan Keemahill and Hayden Betts – 2025-07-10 17:52:00
Following devastating July 4 flooding in Kerr County that killed nearly 100, officials blamed taxpayer resistance for the lack of flood warning sirens along the Guadalupe River. Despite awareness since 2016 of flood risks and the need for a $1 million warning system, political conservatism and a tight tax base stalled progress. An application for FEMA funding was denied due to the absence of a hazard mitigation plan, and the county’s $10.2 million American Rescue Plan Act funds were largely spent on public safety radio systems, not flood warnings. Local leaders and residents now push to install sirens for future safety.
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In the week after the tragic July 4 flooding in Kerr County, several officials have blamed taxpayer pressure as the reason flood warning sirens were never installed along the Guadalupe River.
“The public reeled at the cost,” Kerr County Judge Rob Kelly told reporters one day after the rain pushed Guadalupe River levels more than 32 feet, resulting in nearly 100 deaths in the county, as of Thursday.
Kerr County Judge Rob Kelly speaks during a press conference at the Hill Country Youth Event Center in Kerrville on Saturday July 5, 2025. Credit: Ronaldo Bolaños/The Texas Tribune
A community that overwhelmingly voted for President Donald Trump in 2016, 2020 and 2024, Kerr County constructed an economic engine on the allure of the Guadalupe River. Government leaders acknowledged the need for more disaster mitigation, including a $1 million flood warning system that would better alert the public to emergencies, to sustain that growth, but they were hamstrung by a small and tightfisted tax base.
An examination of transcripts since 2016 from Kerr County’s governing body, the commissioners court, offers a peek into a small Texas county paralyzed by two competing interests: to make one of the country’s most dangerous region for flash flooding safer and to heed to near constant calls from constituents to reduce property taxes and government waste.
“This is a pretty conservative county,” said former Kerr County Judge Tom Pollard, 86. “Politically, of course, and financially as well.”
County zeroes in on river safety in 2016
Cary Burgess, a local meteorologist whose weather reports can be found in the Kerrville Daily Times or heard on Hill Country radio stations, has noticed the construction all along the Guadalupe for the better part of the last decade.
More Texans and out-of-state residents have been discovering the river’s pristine waters lined with bald cypress trees, a long-time draw for camping, hiking and kayaking, and they have been coming in droves to build more homes and businesses along the water’s edge. If any of the newcomers were familiar with the last deadly flood in 1987 that killed 10 evacuating teenagers, they found the river’s threat easy to dismiss.
“They’ve been building up and building up and building up and doing more and more projects along the river that were getting dangerous,” Burgess recalls. “And people are building on this river, my gosh, they don’t even know what this river’s capable of.”
By the time the 1987 flood hit, the county had grown to about 35,000 people. Today, there are about 53,000 people living in Kerr County.
In 2016, Kerr County commissioners already knew they were getting outpaced by neighboring, rapidly growing counties on installing better flood warning systems and were looking for ways to pull ahead.
During a camp evacuation ahead of rising floodwaters, a Seagoville Road Baptist Church bus was swept into the Guadalupe River near the town of Comfort during the July 17, 1987 flood. Forty three people — four adults and 39 teenagers — were washed into the river. Ten teenagers died. Credit: The National Weather Service
During a March 28 meeting that year, they said as much.
“Even though this is probably one of the highest flood-prone regions in the entire state where a lot of people are involved, their systems are state of the art,” Commissioner Tom Moser said then. He discussed how other counties like Comal had moved to sirens and more modern flood warning systems.
“And the current one that we have, it will give – all it does is flashing light,” explained W.B. “Dub” Thomas, the county’s emergency management coordinator. “I mean all – that’s all you get at river crossings or wherever they’re located at.”
Kerr County already had signed on with a company that allowed its residents to opt in and get a CodeRED alert about dangerous weather conditions. But Thomas urged the commissioners court to strive for something more. Cell service along the headwaters of the Guadalupe near Hunt was spotty in the western half of Kerr County, making a redundant system of alerts even more necessary.
“I think we need a system that can be operated or controlled by a centralized location where – whether it’s the Sheriff’s communication personnel, myself or whatever, and it’s just a redundant system that will complement what we currently have,” Thomas said that year.
“The purpose of this project is to provide Kerr County with a flood warning system,” the county wrote in its application. “The System will be utilized for mass notification to citizens about high water levels and flooding conditions throughout Kerr County.”
But the Texas Division of Emergency Management, which oversees billions of FEMA dollars designed to prevent disasters, denied the application because they didn’t have a current hazard mitigation plan. They resubmitted it, news outlets reported, but by then, priority was given to counties that had suffered damage from Hurricane Harvey.
Political skepticism about a windfall
All that concern about warning systems seemed to fade over the next five years, as the political atmosphere throughout the county became more polarized and COVID fatigue frayed local residents’ nerves.
In 2021, Kerr County was awarded a $10.2 million windfall from the American Rescue Plan Act, or ARPA, which Congress passed that same year to support local governments impacted by the pandemic. Cities and counties were given flexibility to use the money on a variety of expenses, including those related to storm-related infrastructure. Corpus Christi, for example, allocated $15 million of its ARPA funding to “rehabilitate and/or replace aging storm water infrastructure.” Waco’s McLennan County spent $868,000 on low water crossings.
“I’m here to ask this court today to send this money back to the Biden administration, which I consider to be the most criminal treasonous communist government ever to hold the White House,” one resident told commissioners in April 2022, fearing strings were attached to the money.
“We don’t want to be bought by the federal government, thank you very much,” another resident told commissioners. “We’d like the federal government to stay out of Kerr County and their money.”
When it was all said and done, the county approved $7 million in ARPA dollars on a public safety radio communications system for the sheriff’s department and county fire services to meet the community’s needs for the next 10 years, although earlier estimates put that contract at $5 million. Another $1 million went to sheriff’s employees in the form of stipends and raises, and just over $600,000 went towards additional county positions. A new walking path was also created with the ARPA money.
While much has been made of the ARPA spending, it’s not clear if residents or the commissioners understood at the time they could have applied the funds to a warning system. Current Kerr County Judge Rob Kelly, and Thomas have declined repeated requests for interviews. Moser, who is no longer a commissioner, did not immediately respond to a Texas Tribune interview request.
Many Kerr County residents, including those who don’t normally follow every cog-turn of government proceedings, have now been poring over the county commissioners meetings this week including Ingram City Council member Raymond Howard. They’ve been digging into ARPA spending and other ways that the county missed opportunities to procure $1 million to implement the warning system commissioners wanted almost 10 years ago, and to prevent the devastating death toll from this week.
A week ago, Howard spent the early morning hours of July 4 knocking on neighbors’ doors to alert them to the flooding after he himself ignored the first two phone alerts on his phone in the middle of the night.
In the week since, the more he’s learned about Kerr County’s county inaction on a flood warning system, the angrier he has become.
“Well, they were obviously thinking about it because they brought it up 20 times since 2016 and never did anything on it,” Howard said, adding that he never thought to ask the city to install sirens previously because he didn’t realize the need for it. “I’m pretty pissed about that.”
Harvey Hilderbran, the former Texas House representative for Kerr County, said what he is watching play out in the community this week is what he’s seen for years in Texas: A disaster hits. There’s a rush to find out who’s accountable. Then outrage pushes officials to shore up deficiencies.
It’s not that Kerr County was dead set against making the area safer, Hilderbran said. Finding a way to pay for it is always where better ideas run aground, especially with a taxbase and leadership as fiscally conservative as Kerr’s.
“Generally everybody’s for doing something until it gets down to the details paying for it,” Hilderbran said. “It’s not like people don’t think about it … I know it’s an issue on their minds and something needs to be done.”
Howard, the 62-year-old Ingram city council member, came to Kerr County years ago to care for an ailing mother. Although he has now been diagnosed with stage four cancer, he said he intends to devote his life to make sure that his small two-mile town north of Kerrville has a warning system and he already knows where he’s going to put it.
“We’re going to get one, put it up on top of the tower behind the volunteer fire department,” he said. “It’s the thing I could do even if it’s the last thing I do …to help secure safety for the future.”
The Texas Tribune is a member-supported, nonpartisan newsroom informing and engaging Texans on state politics and policy. Learn more at texastribune.org.
Note: The following A.I. based commentary is not part of the original article, reproduced above, but is offered in the hopes that it will promote greater media literacy and critical thinking, by making any potential bias more visible to the reader –Staff Editor.
Political Bias Rating: Center-Right
This article presents a mostly factual and balanced overview of Kerr County’s flood warning system challenges within a politically conservative community. It highlights the county’s strong conservative stance on limited government spending and skepticism toward federal aid, reflecting typical right-leaning priorities such as fiscal conservatism and wariness of federal involvement. The coverage is careful to present multiple perspectives, including official statements and local residents’ concerns, without overt editorializing or ideological framing. The tone and content suggest an objective report focused on local governance dynamics rather than promoting a partisan agenda, though the conservative context is clearly emphasized.
www.kxan.com – Abigail Jones – 2025-07-10 12:34:00
SUMMARY: Devastating floods in Texas have caused significant damage and at least 120 deaths, with many still missing. Central Texas wildlife is struggling too. All Things Wild Rehabilitation in Georgetown is caring for over 500 animals affected by the floods, including orphaned, injured, and displaced wildlife. The nonprofit urgently needs donations, volunteers, and more land to continue its work. They have already admitted nearly as many animals in 2025 as all of last year, emphasizing the ongoing impact of extreme weather. All Things Wild provides extensive care and safely releases animals back into natural habitats. They encourage public support and offer guidance for reporting injured wildlife.
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