On Friday, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to allow President Joe Biden’s administration to enforce a crucial aspect of a new rule designed to protect LGBT students from discrimination based on gender identity in 10 Republican-led states that had challenged it.
The justices denied the administration’s request to partially lift lower court injunctions that had blocked the rule in its entirety. The rule, which expands protections under Title IX—a law prohibiting sex discrimination in federally funded education programs—was announced in April and was set to take effect on August 1.
However, the lower court decisions had prevented the U.S. Education Department from enforcing the rule in Tennessee, Louisiana, and eight other states.
The administration had sought to reinstate a key provision clarifying that discrimination “on the basis of sex” includes sexual orientation and gender identity, along with other aspects of the rule unrelated to gender identity.
Biden’s administration had asked the Supreme Court to step in on an emergency basis in response to lawsuits from Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana, Idaho, and several Louisiana school boards, as well as lawsuits from Tennessee, Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana, Virginia, West Virginia, and a group of Christian educators.
“These final regulations clarify Title IX’s requirement that schools promptly and effectively address all forms of sex discrimination,” U.S. Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Catherine Lhamon said when the rule was announced. “We look forward to working with schools, students and families to prevent and eliminate sex discrimination.”
Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill called the rule a federal overreach that would eviscerate Title IX, and criticized what she called Biden’s “extreme gender ideology.”
“This is all for a political agenda, ignoring significant safety concerns for young women students in pre-schools, elementary schools, middle schools, high schools, colleges and universities across Louisiana and the entire country,” Murrill said of the federal rule when she announced the state’s lawsuit, opens new tab.
“These schools now have to change the way they behave and the way they speak, and whether they can have private spaces for little girls or women. It is enormously invasive, and it is much more than a suggestion; it is a mandate that well exceeds their statutory authority,” Murrill added.
The states and other plaintiffs argued that the new rule would require schools to permit transgender students to use restrooms and locker rooms corresponding to their gender identities and mandate that faculty use transgender students’ preferred pronouns.
These lawsuits are among several that have successfully blocked the rule in 22 states, mostly Republican-led, claiming that the Biden administration is unlawfully altering a law designed over 50 years ago to protect women from educational discrimination.
On July 30, the administration achieved a partial victory when a federal judge in Alabama refused to block the rule in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina. However, the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals temporarily halted this ruling the next day.
The Biden administration’s rule introduces several changes to Title IX regulations, which now include protections for LGBT individuals and strengthen safeguards for pregnant students, parents, and guardians. The administration argues that applying Title IX protections to LGBT students is a “straightforward application” of the Supreme Court’s 2020 ruling that Title VII, which bars workplace discrimination, protects gay and transgender employees.
Judges Terry Doughty in Monroe, Louisiana, and Danny Reeves in Lexington, Kentucky, have both ruled that Title IX’s reference to sex applies only to “biological” males and females, and that the 2020 Supreme Court ruling does not extend to this context.
The administration contends that most of the rule does not involve gender identity and should be enforced while appeals are pending. It has agreed, however, that two key provisions—one regarding restrooms and locker rooms and the other concerning pronoun use—can remain blocked during the legal process.
The administration also noted that the rule does not alter existing requirements for sex separation in athletics, which is being addressed through separate rulemaking.
Both the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans and the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals denied requests to partially enforce the rule, leading the administration to seek Supreme Court intervention. In June, the Supreme Court agreed to hear a case from Tennessee regarding a Republican-backed ban on gender-affirming medical care for transgender minors, with the case scheduled for the court’s next term beginning in October.
