CEC Slams Advancement of GOP Anti-LGBTQI+ Education Bills

Washington, DC — After the Republican-controlled Committee on Education and Workforce voted to advance H.R. 5505, the so-called “Equal Campus Access Act,” out of committee and adopted an anti-trans amendment to H.R. 2555, the “Freedom of Association in Higher Education Act of 2026,” Congressional Equality Caucus Chair Rep. Mark Takano released the following statement:

“Instead of standing up for students’ rights or fighting to lower the skyrocketing cost of higher education, Republicans chose to prioritize a bill, the so-called Equal Campus Access Act, that would require minority students to subsidize their own discrimination and empower certain college and university student groups to discriminate against minority students,” said Rep. Mark Takano, Chair of the Congressional Equality Caucus and Senior Member of the Committee on Education and Workforce. “Republicans’ also furthered their obsession with targeting trans students by adding anti-trans language to another bill during markup. Every student deserves an education free from discrimination and no student should be targeted just because of who they are. There are real problems facing American students—but Republicans are too obsessed with making life hell for minorities to care about improving education in America.”


BACKGROUND ON H.R. 5505, THE EQUAL CAMPUS ACCESS ACT OF 2025
On September 18, 2025, Rep. Tim Walberg introduced the Equal Campus Access Act, which would prohibit Higher Education Act funding to public colleges and universities that refuse to recognize or provide benefits, such as funding, to student religious groups because of the group’s religious beliefs, practices, speech, leadership standards, or standards of conduct. This means that even if the group’s practices, leadership standards, or standards of conduct discriminate against minority students—including by prohibiting membership by LGBTQI+ students, students of color, or students with disabilities—the school must recognize and provide benefits to the group. This provision would therefore exempt all student religious groups from complying with schools’  nondiscrimination policies.

Many opponents of all-comers policies oppose these policies because they want to allow student groups that discriminate against LGBTQI+ students to still be eligible to receive official recognition and funding. In Christian Legal Society v. Martinez (2010), the Supreme Court held that public universities could require student groups, including religious groups, seeking official recognition by the university to follow an all-comers nondiscrimination policy.

BACKGROUND ON THE ANS TO H.R. 2555, THE FREEDOM OF ASSOCIATION IN HIGHER EDUCATION ACT OF 2026
As originally introduced, H.R. 2555, the Freedom of Association in Higher Education Act, amends the Higher Education Act to prohibit institutions of higher education from preventing students from forming or applying to join a single-sex social organization (e.g., fraternities or sororities), and to prohibit these schools from taking adverse actions against students based solely on their membership in one of these single-sex organizations.

During the markup of the bill, Rep. Harris (NC) offered an amendment in the nature of a substitute to, among other provisions, add trans-exclusionary language to the bill.