A federal judge on Monday blocked the Biden administration’s new Title IX regulations in six more states, as Republicans and conservative groups seek to overturn a policy that expanded protections for LGBTQ students.
In a 93-page opinion, Judge Danny C. Reeves of the Eastern District of Kentucky ruled that the Department of Education had gone too far in expanding the definition of “gender” to include gender identity.
Judge Reeves struck down the regulations in Tennessee, Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana, Virginia and West Virginia days after a federal judge issued similar rulings in Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana and Idaho.
Title IX, which was passed in 1972, prohibits sex discrimination in educational programs that receive federal funding. The new regulations broadened the scope of the law to prohibit unequal treatment of pregnant students and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.
But a coalition of conservative and Christian advocacy groups, as well as attorneys general in Republican states, argued that protections for transgender students, such as access to locker rooms and bathrooms that match their gender identity, come at the expense of others’ privacy and conflict with a number of state laws.
More than 20 Republican states are filing to block the rules from taking effect as scheduled on Aug. 1. An Education Department spokesman said the agency was monitoring 10 lawsuits challenging the rules.
Echoing other recent decisions against the new regulations, Judge Reeves rejected the Department of Education’s central argument: that the Supreme Court’s 2020 decision in Bostock County v. Clayton — which found that gay and transgender workers are protected from workplace discrimination employment under the Civil Rights Act – is justified by extending these protections to students under Title IX.
Opponents of the rules argued, and Justice Reeves agreed in his ruling, that segregating students by gender on athletic teams and in facilities such as dormitories and bathrooms was integral to Title IX’s purpose of ensuring equal opportunity for women when it was passed in 1972. and that the Biden administration’s interpretation confused that intent.
“Essentially, the final rule covers a reality in which student housing remains segregated by gender, while students are free to choose the bathrooms and locker rooms they use based on their gender identity,” he wrote.
Justice Reeves also struck down the rule on First Amendment grounds, questioning whether teachers who refused to use a student’s preferred pronouns could be investigated for sexual harassment under the rule, even if the use of pronouns “consistent with the assumed gender identity of the student” violated their pronouns. religious or moral beliefs.
