The Obama administration is planning to issue a sweeping directive telling every public school district in the country to allow transgender students to use the bathrooms that match their gender identity, the New York Times reported Thursday.

A letter was scheduled to go out to school districts today, informing them of the executive decree. The directive doesn’t have the force of law, but it will threaten school districts with the loss of federal funding if they don’t abide by it, the Times reported.

The move is a bold one for sure. The Obama administration is telling local school districts that they must accept its interpretation of law, or be punished. It’s forcing its values on many communities that likely have a different interpretation of law. This is the executive branch doing this, not the judicial. The courts have yet to decide if sex discrimination laws apply to the transgender population.

“A school may not require transgender students to use facilities inconsistent with their gender identity or to use individual-user facilities when other students are not required to do so,” according to the letter, a copy of which was provided to the Times.

There are some major implications of this decree. With this letter, the executive branch is wading into a debate best reserved for the courts, and doing so in a way that will force schools to abide by its directive — or risk losing federal funds. The threat of losing those funds will be enough to force school districts to fall in line.

Are we as a nation comfortable with this kind of executive power? Are we OK with any president using the threat of losing federal funding as a means to impose his/her values on every single community in the nation? We shouldn’t be. Regardless of your views on the transgender issue, an abuse of power like this should trouble us all.