Supreme Court rejects request to reinstate new Title IX rules

The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) has rejected the Biden administration's request to reinstate most of its new Title IX guidance.

With a 5 to 4 decision that saw Justice Neil Gorsuch joining the three liberal justices in dissent, the rule remains blocked while further litigation continues.

In April, the Biden administration and the U.S. Department of Education (DOE) issued the rule that includes changes to how federal civil rights law protects against “discrimination based on sex stereotypes, sexual orientation, gender identity, and sex characteristics.”

Several states, including Louisiana and Tennessee, filed lawsuits against the DOE, arguing that the new Title IX guidance overstepped legal boundaries or conflicted with state laws.

In the litigation that preceded this SCOTUS issuance, the lower courts blocked the new rule from being enforced in some states, and the higher courts, the Courts of Appeal for the 5th and 6th Circuits, allowed that block to stay in place while the legal process continued.

The federal government then filed an emergency application with SCOTUS to stay the preliminary injunctions, pending resolution of the appeals in the 5th and 6th Circuits.

“The Court denies the Government’s applications,” states the majority SCOTUS opinion.

The leading opinion explains that the provisions of the DOE rule that include the new definition of “sex discrimination” to include “sexual orientation and gender identity” will remain blocked from implementation, but added that this part is too connected to the rest of the rule to allow other parts to go into effect.

The majority opinion states that “the 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.”

Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who authored the dissenting opinion, wrote, “The injunctions this Court leaves in place will burden the Government more than necessary.”

Sotomayor went on to argue that a “more tailored relief focused on the three challenged provisions would have redressed respondents’ alleged injuries without depriving the public of the Rule’s other provisions.”

In June, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton issued an advisory for Texas schools regarding the DOE’s new Title IX rule.

He explained that “Texas schools do not and should not adopt or enforce any of the policy changes contained in the rule. Texas students are now safe from losing their Title IX protections and the school districts are protected from the threat of the loss of federal funding.”