Transgender activists using litigation to push child sex changes simultaneously sponsor an organization that teaches judges to view cases through the lens of gender ideology.

The Judicial Education Program at UCLA School of Law’s Williams Institute partners with courts and judicial associations across the country to provide trainings that persuade judges to bring gender ideology into the courtroom, offering primers on the spectrum of sexual identities and suggesting they use pronouns when introducing themselves.

Meanwhile, its donors and corporate sponsors have for years been on the frontlines of lawsuits advancing LGBT causes, from legalizing same-sex marriage to opposing state child sex change bans.

Richard Painter, former chief White House ethics lawyer under President George W. Bush, told the Daily Caller News Foundation he has “long called upon federal judges not to attend subject specific ‘training’ and ‘education’ programs” like the ones offered by Williams Institute.

“Judges can learn about subjects such as LGBT issues and economics on their own without ‘training’ funded by lawyers who argue cases in front of them or organizations that are parties to cases before them,” Painter told the DCNF. “In screening potential Supreme Court nominees for ethics issues, I remember asking about attendance at such ‘free’ seminars.”

One of the reasons Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito passed ethics clearance for appointment to the Supreme Court is because they did not participate in these kinds of programs, Painter noted.

Thousands of judges and their staffs have encountered training material produced by the Williams Institute.

Todd Brower, director of the Judicial Education Program at the Williams Institute, wrote in a 2019 letter to the House Judiciary Committee that he has trained “over 5000 judges, court staff and related court professionals from virtually every state in the United States on sexual orientation and gender identity issues for nearly 15 years.”

The institute’s Judicial Education Program, which operates alongside the International Association of LGBTQ+ Judges and the LGBTQ Bar Association, has offered trainings at venues including the New Mexico Judicial Conference, National Association of State Judicial Educators and National Judicial College, according to its website.

Brower taught a webinar for Ohio court personnel in November 2022 titled, “Sexual Identity and Gender Identity in the Courts,” according to a list previously obtained by the DCNF. He taught a course on incorporating pronoun usage and an awareness of gender identity into the courtroom at the Nevada Supreme Court in July 2023, the DCNF previously reported.

The institute was also involved in a May 2023 “Pride & Pronouns” training hosted at the Superior Court of Santa Cruz County.

This work, along with the institute’s research, is funded by several major law firms that do pro bono work to support LGBT-related activist litigation, from opposing child sex-change bans in red states to filing amicus briefs in key Supreme Court cases, according to a packet listing current and former sponsors.

“When a group like UCLA’s Williams Institute or the Climate Judiciary Project, for example, seeks behind-the-scenes access to judges, it is worth asking questions about the group’s funding and sponsors,” Carrie Severino, president of the conservative legal advocacy group JCN, told the DCNF. “Who are the sponsors we don’t know about? Why is the group interested in conducting such a training?”

One sponsor, Covington & Burling, records that it spent 10,200 pro bono hours in 2023 on LGBTQ+ matters, including leading an effort by medical associations to oppose child-sex change bans by filing amicus briefs in cases challenging the red state laws.

The firm represented the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) and the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) in a case challenging Alabama’s ban on child sex changes. Discovery in the Alabama case revealed WPATH allowed political concerns to influence its Standards of Care (SOC-8) guidelines, succumbing to pressure from the Biden administration and “social justice lawyers.”

Two firms, Akin Gump and Sidley Austin, were part of an effort launched in 2019 with the Human Rights Campaign to bring strategic litigation to “combat the relentless attacks on LGBTQ equality by the Trump-Pence administration.”

Akin Gump joined the American Civil Liberties Union, Lambda Legal and another firm to challenge Tennessee’s ban on child sex change procedures last year.

The Supreme Court will consider the Biden administration’s challenge to the same Tennessee law this term.

Another sponsor, Baker McKenzie, partnered with Lambda Legal and the Southern Poverty Law Center to fight Florida’s Parental Rights in Education bill in court. The firm received an award from the LGBT advocacy group Stonewall for its litigation to “support and advance opportunities for LGBTQ+ young people across the country.”

The law firm Sheppard Mullin Richter serves as the national pro bono counsel for the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD), meaning its attorneys “regularly attend board meetings and represent the GLAAD when litigation arises,” according to the firm’s website.

Latham & Watkins helped the Williams Institute file its amicus brief in the Obergefell v. Hodges Supreme Court case, which legalized same-sex marriage. Research from the brief was ultimately cited in the ruling.

Other firms that support the Williams Institute and engage in pro bono LGBT litigation include Kirkland & Ellis, Munger, Tolles & Olson and O’Melveny & Myers,

The Williams Institute operates with an over $4.5 million annual budget, according to its website.

“The funding of such ‘training’ of judges by law firms with a stake in LGBTQ-related case outcomes doesn’t pass the smell test,” Sarah Parshall Perry, senior legal fellow at the Heritage Foundation’s Edwin Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial Studies, told the DCNF. “And frankly, it would also be a violation of the lawyer’s code of professional ethics to allow private law firms to sponsor these one-sided trainings designed to reach preferred courtroom outcomes.”

These kinds of training are why state courts “have been overtaken by the despotism of ideological newspeak,” she said.

“Within the domestic relations field, for example, there have been increasingly problematic determinations from state judges on issues such a child custody, when a parent who does not automatically affirm a minor child’s expression of gender identity is subsequently divested of custody under the auspices that automatic affirmation by the other parent would be in the child’s ‘best interest,’” Perry said.

Pushing Child Sex Changes

The Williams Institute is tied to organizations that spearheaded the push for child gender transitions.

The institute’s faculty advisory committee now includes Jillian T. Weiss, executive director of Transgender Legal Defense & Education, and Mark Schuster, CEO of the Kaiser Permanente School of Medicine in California.

Multiple detransitioners, such as Chloe Cole, have sued Kaiser Permanente for administering sex-change procedures like puberty blockers and double mastectomies to them as children.

The institute’s nonprofit donors backed the legal and medical groups that helped erase safeguards for children.

The Chicago-based Tawani Foundation, founded by transgender activist Jennifer (formerly James) Pritzker, has given the Williams Institute more than $1.4 million since 2018, according to tax documents.

Pritzker, a father and retired army lieutenant colonel who now identifies as a woman, is a major funder of WPATH. He received a philanthropy award from the organization for offering “longstanding support” and aid to produce the SOC8 guidelines.

Court documents unsealed in a case challenging Alabama’s ban on sex change procedures for minors revealed WPATH avoided evidence reviews for its SOC8 guidelines on the advice of “social justice” attorneys. Assistant Secretary for Health Rachel Levine also successfully pressured WPATH to remove its minimum age recommendations.

The Tawani Foundation awarded $275,000 to WPATH between 2019 and 2020, tax records show.

The foundation also funds a slew of LGBT litigation efforts. Since 2018, it has awarded the Transgender Legal Defense & Education Fund $437,500, the National Center for Transgender Equality $125,000 and $100,000 to GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders, per tax records.

The San Francisco-based Evelyn & Walter Haas, Jr. Fund has given the Williams Institute $282,500 since 2016. Over the same time period, it awarded nearly $1.27 million to the National Center for Transgender Equality, $1.08 million to the Transgender Law Center, $80,000 to the Transgender Legal Defense & Education Fund, $1.7 million to the National Center For Lesbian Rights and $435,500 to Lambda Legal, per tax records.

The left-wing Tides Center works with and financially sponsors the fund’s Haas Leadership Initiatives program, which offers grants to organizations to support litigation that increases “the legal privileges of LGBT people,” according to Influence Watch.

The Williams Institute has also received a total of $283,348 from the David Bohnett Foundation since 2004, according to grants reported on its website. Most recently, the organization gave $5,000 for its 2024 gala.

Bohnett Foundation president Michael Fleming is married to his same-sex partner, California Court of Appeal Justice Luis A. Lavin, according to his bio. Lavin spoke at the Williams Institute’s LGBTQ Bench webinar in 2021.

The David Bohnett Foundation has donated to various other groups pushing cases through the legal system, such as the Transgender Legal Defense & Education Fund, the Transgender Law Center, Lambda Legal and the National Center for Lesbian Rights.

The Williams Institute, Covington & Burling, Akin Gump, Sidley Austin, Baker McKenzie, Sheppard Mullin Richter, Latham & Watkins, Kirkland & Ellis, Munger, Tolles & Olson and O’Melveny & Myers did not respond to requests for comment. Pritzker also did not respond to a request for comment.

Katelynn Richardson
November 18, 2024

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