On Friday, the U.S. Supreme Court (SCOTUS) ruled against the Biden administration’s attempts to amend federal rules regarding Title IX, which added gender identity to the list of federally protected categories while the matter is further adjudicated.
In April, the U.S. Department of Education announced an update to the Title IX code, the sweeping name given to civil rights legislation prohibiting sex-based education discrimination. The changes went into effect on August 1, except for the 26 states like Alabama that have secured injunctions in their respective courts. The rules add gender identity and sexual orientation to the list of federally protected groups. They also redefine sexual harassment, exposing teachers and students to liability for using biologically accurate pronouns. Schools risk losing federal funding for failing to adhere to the changes.
Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall joined over two dozen other Republican attorneys general in lawsuits against the Biden administration. Marshall and the others argued that the Title IX rule would interfere with existing state laws limiting school athletes to spaces, including sports, that correspond with their biological sex.
The SCOTUS ruling came in response to lower court rulings in a handful of states. However, the precedent will be sufficient to allow states that have secured injunctions against the rule to sleep peacefully without worrying about the possibility of having those decisions overturned until the matter can be heard in full by the Supreme Court.
The Department of Education filed an emergency application to stay injunctions by the Fifth and Sixth Circuit Courts, saying the new rules should not be excluded whole cloth. Instead, the Department said it should be sufficient to exclude enforcement of the contentious gender identity portion and not those aspects of the new rules that are not being challenged by the Republican states.
Scotus Title IX by Craig Monger on Scribd
“[T]he Government argues (and the dissent agrees) that those provisions should be severed and that the other provisions of the new rule should still be permitted to take effect in the interim period while the Government’s appeals of the preliminary injunctions are pending in the Courts of Appeals,” Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote in the majority opinion. “The lower courts concluded otherwise because the new definition of sex discrimination is intertwined with and affects many other provisions of the new rule. Those courts therefore concluded, at least at this preliminary stage, that the allegedly unlawful provisions are not readily severable from the remaining provisions.”
“[T]he Government has not provided this Court a sufficient basis to disturb the lower courts’ interim conclusions that the three provisions found likely to be unlawful are intertwined with and affect other provisions of the rule. Nor has the Government adequately identified which particular provisions, if any, are sufficiently independent of the enjoined definitional provision and thus might be able to remain in effect,” it continued.
Conservative Justice Neil Gorsuch dissented from the majority opinion, along with Justices Elena Kagan, Ketanji Brown Jackson and Sonia Sotomayor, who wrote in favor of the minority. Sotomayor concurred with the Biden administration’s assertion that the lower court’s rulings were “overbroad” and the injunctions should only apply to challenged provisions.
“I would grant most of the Government’s stay requests and leave enjoined only its enforcement of the three challenged provisions,” Sotomayor wrote.
She continued, “As litigation over the Rule proceeds, respondents might be able to show those other portions of the Rule will irreparably harm them in a manner justifying further equitable relief. At this juncture, however, enjoining the application of any other part of the Rule needlessly impairs the Government from enforcing Title IX and deprives potential claimants of protection against forms of sex discrimination not at issue in respondents’ suit.”
To connect with the author of this story or to comment, email craig.monger@1819news.com.
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