‘For female students everywhere from preschool to graduate school – today is a day for celebration,’ attorney says
The Supreme Court on Friday ruled unanimously in support of two federal court injunctions in 10 Republican-led states barring implementation of the Biden administration’s new pro-transgender Title IX rewrite while the issues is hashed out in court.
It also ruled 5-4 to reject a request from the Education Department to partially enforce its Title IX rewrite, with the majority stating it’s too hard to parse out the uncontested regulations with the wildly controversial pro-transgender policies.
The new “Biden Rule,” released in April, added gender identity to Title IX, thus allowing female-identifying men into women’s bathrooms and requiring others to address them with their preferred pronouns — alongside other provisions unrelated to transgender issues.
The education department had asked the court to allow unchallenged parts of the rule to go into effect. The majority said no, siding with lower courts that had ruled the new definition of sex discrimination is too intertwined in the rewrite.
The lower courts correctly concluded “that the allegedly unlawful provisions are not readily severable from the remaining provisions. The lower courts also pointed out the difficulty that schools would face in determining how to apply the rule for a temporary period with some provisions in effect and some enjoined,” the Supreme Court ruled.
“The Supreme Court’s rejection of the emergency request means the entire rule will be on pause in those 10 states with a temporary injunction while lawsuits challenging the regulations work their way through the courts,” Higher Ed Dive reported.
The Epoch Times reported that four dissenting justices “would have let part of the rule take effect, but the full bench agreed that the key changes the federal government has sought to implement, including the re-definition of ‘sex-based discrimination’ to include gender identity and the restrictions on maintaining sex-separated spaces, should remain blocked,”
Explaining the decision, South Texas College constitutional law Professor Josh Blackman wrote for Reason: “I think the Court did not want to get into that thicket with a shadow docket case. They likely thought it sufficient now to deny relief, without weighing in on whether other provisions should be put on ice.”
Conservatives hailed the ruling as a huge victory.
“In the Court’s view, the federal government could not demonstrate a likelihood of ultimate success on its arguments, ensuring that for the time being—and just before the start of a new school year—26 states will continue to receive relief from the Title rule while litigation proceeds. For female students everywhere from preschool to graduate school – today is a day for celebration,” stated Sarah Parshall Perry, senior legal fellow at the Heritage Foundation, in a news release.
Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti, a Republican who filed one of the complaints against the new rule, said he is grateful the Supreme Court “agreed that no part of the Biden administration’s Title IX rule should go into effect while the case proceeds. This is a win for student privacy, free speech, and the rule of law.”
In July, under a Republican majority, the House of Representatives approved a joint resolution to block the Education Department’s revise of Title IX that adds gender identity as a protected class. Four judges have also issued injunctions against it.
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