The US Supreme Court on Friday refused to allow President Joe Biden’s administration to enforce a key part of a new rule protecting LGBT students from discrimination in schools and colleges based on gender identity in 10 Republican-led states.
The justices rejected the administration’s request to partially lift a lower court’s injunction that had blocked the entirety of the rule expanding protections under Title IX, a law that prohibits sex discrimination in federally funded education programs, while litigation continues.
The lower court ruling had blocked the U.S. Department of Education from enforcing the new rule announced in April, which was set to take effect Aug. 1 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, as well as several other provisions of the rule that do not address gender identity.
The Biden administration had asked the Supreme Court to intervene on an emergency basis in a lawsuit filed by Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana, Idaho and several Louisiana school boards, as well as by Tennessee, Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana, Virginia, West Virginia and an association of Christian teachers.
“These final rules clarify Title IX’s requirement that schools promptly and effectively address all forms of gender discrimination,” U.S. Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Katherine Lhamon said when the rule was announced. “We look forward to working together with schools, students, and families to prevent and eliminate gender discrimination.”
Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill called the rule a federal overreach that would erode Title IX, and criticized Biden’s “extreme gender ideology.”
“This is all being done with a political agenda that ignores the safety concerns of young girls attending pre-schools, elementary schools, middle schools, high schools, colleges and universities in Louisiana and across the country,” Murrill said of the federal rule in announcing the state’s lawsuit.
“These schools are now required to change the way they behave and communicate, and whether they can create private spaces for young girls or women. This is extremely offensive, and it’s more than just a suggestion; it’s an order that goes far beyond their statutory authority,” Murrill said.
The states and other plaintiffs had argued that the rule would force schools to allow transgender students to use restrooms and locker rooms, and would force teachers to require transgender students to use pronouns that correspond with their gender identity.
The lawsuits are two of several that have successfully blocked the law in 22 states — nearly all of them Republican-governed — and argue that the Democratic president’s administration is illegally rewriting a law enacted more than a half-century ago to protect women from discrimination in education.
On July 30, the administration scored a victory when a federal judge in Alabama refused to block the rule in that state as well as Florida, Georgia and South Carolina. The next day, the Atlanta-based 11th US Circuit Court of Appeals temporarily blocked that decision.
‘Simple application’
The Biden administration rule makes a number of changes to rules combating sex discrimination under Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, including covering LGBT individuals as well as strengthening protections for pregnant students, parents and guardians.
The administration said protecting LGBT students under Title IX is a “direct application” of the Supreme Court’s landmark 2020 ruling that a similar law called Title VII, which prohibits workplace discrimination, protects gay and transgender employees.
Both U.S. Judge Terry Doughty in Monroe, Louisiana, and U.S. Judge Danny Reeves in Lexington, Kentucky, concluded that Title IX’s gender reference pertains only to “biological” males and females, and that the Supreme Court’s 2020 ruling does not apply in this context.
The administration has said that most of the rule has nothing to do with gender identity and should be allowed to take effect, but agreed that two key provisions — one covering restrooms and locker rooms and another potentially involving the use of pronouns — could be blocked while the appeals case plays out in court.
The administration also said the rule does not change “existing requirements governing gender discrimination in athletics” and that the issue is the subject of “separate rulemaking.”
The New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and the Cincinnati-based 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected requests to partially enforce the rule, leading the administration to ask the Supreme Court to intervene.
In June, the Supreme Court agreed to hear another case from Tennessee, involving a Republican-backed ban on gender-affirming medical care for transgender minors. The court will hear the case in its next session, which begins in October.