The Department of Justice (DOJ) on Monday asked the Supreme Court to take emergency action to reinstate parts of President Biden’s Title IX rules in a handful of Republican-led states where new regulations are being blocked, arguing that a lower court’s injunction halting full implementation of the rules is unnecessarily “burdensome.”
In April, the Department of Education released the final version of sweeping changes to Title IX, the federal civil rights law that bans sex discrimination in schools and education programs that receive federal funding. The new rules, which for the first time cover discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, were immediately criticized by Republicans who argued that the new regulations undermine the original intent of Title IX, and sparked a flurry of lawsuits across states.
Federal judges have sided with the states in three lawsuits, blocking the administration’s rules from taking effect in 15 Republican-led states while legal challenges to the rules play out in court. The remaining states are still expected to implement the changes by Aug. 1.
The rule also does not apply to schools attended by children of members of the conservative political group Moms for Liberty or members of the Young America’s Foundation, an organization of young conservatives.
On Monday, U.S. Attorney General Elizabeth Preloger asked the Supreme Court to narrow the scope of a district court injunction blocking the administration’s Title IX rules in 10 states: Tennessee, Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana, Virginia, West Virginia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana and Idaho.
She argued that the injunction should only apply to rules banning discrimination on the basis of gender identity, a provision that is at the center of a lawsuit challenging new Title IX rules that strengthen protections for pregnant and parenting students and change how schools handle claims of sexual harassment and sexual assault.
Preloger wrote Monday that the state is not challenging “the vast majority” of the changes made to Title IX. “Instead, the state is challenging three separate provisions of the code related to discrimination against transgender people,” she wrote.
Conservative states and leaders have long argued that the administration’s Title IX rules misinterpret a 2020 Supreme Court decision that protects employees from discrimination based on gender identity.
The rule, which could require schools to allow transgender students to use bathrooms, locker rooms and use pronouns that match their gender identity, has been criticized by Republicans as contradictory to laws passed in more than a dozen Republican-led states.
“The district court found that defendants’ challenges were likely to succeed and issued a preliminary injunction. But the court refused to tailor the injunction to the two provisions of the rule that caused defendants’ alleged harm, or even to the three provisions that defendants challenged on the merits,” Preloger wrote on Monday. “Instead, the court blocked the entire rule, including dozens of provisions that defendants did not challenge and that the court did not intend to find to be likely to be invalid.”
“Just a few months ago, this court granted a partial stay after a district court issued a blanket preliminary injunction that ignored the fundamental principle that equitable relief must not burden a defendant more than is necessary to compensate a plaintiff for their damages,” she added, referring to a Supreme Court decision in May that narrowed a lower court’s order to allow Idaho to enforce its felony ban on gender-affirming medical care for minors.
“Some judges have warned:[l]”The High Court would be wise to heed warnings about the limits of its equitable power,” Preloger wrote. “Lower courts have ignored those warnings, once again making this Court’s intervention necessary.”
