Montana Legislature Debates Bill Similar to One Arkansas Passed in 2023
Recently Alliance Defending Freedom Legal Counsel Sara Beth Nolan spoke to the Montana House Judiciary Committee in support of a bill that requires schools, prisons, domestic violence shelters, and other included facilities to designate spaces like locker rooms, restrooms, and sleeping quarters as either males or females.
The bill is similar to a measure Arkansas passed in 2023.
Act 317 by Rep. Mary Bentley (R – Perryville) and Sen. Dan Sullivan (R – Jonesboro) protects privacy in public school locker rooms, showers, restrooms, changing areas, and similar facilities. The law requires public schools to designate these facilities for “male” or “female” use. It also addresses sleeping accommodations for students on overnight school trips — something that has been a serious problem for students in other states.
Laws like these are necessary to protect students from federal policy changes that seem to come with each election cycle.
In 2016 the Obama Administration issued federal “guidelines” directing every public school in America — including schools in Arkansas — to let biological males use girls’ locker rooms, showers, bathrooms, and similar facilities at school. The Trump Administration rescinded those federal policies in 2018, which gave schools a brief reprieve, but the Biden Administration moved to reinstate the policies shortly after the 2020 election.
Since his inauguration last week, President Trump has issued a series of executive orders addressing issues like this one, but a future president could repeal those executive orders.
State laws can help clarify how public schools protect student privacy in the face of changing federal policy.
You can watch ADF’s committee testimony below.
