Supreme Court temporarily rejects Biden administration request that would expand Title IX protections

The Supreme Court on Friday prohibited the Biden administration from enforcing some portions of a significant regulation of sex discrimination in education, with regard to whether it safeguards trans pupils. 
 
The court denied the administration’s request that the huge number of less controversial aspects of the regulation that in many cases has nothing to do with gender identity be implemented across the states where it has been sued while lower courts continue to struggle with the contentious transgender issues. 
 
Thus, in light of this limited record and in these circumstances for the limited emergency applications the Government has not given this Court a basis to interfere with the lower court interim conclusions that three of the challenged provisions previously found to be likely unlawful are connected and impact the other provisions of the rule. 
 
Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar had not requested the court for the prohibitory order on lower court decisions that declined to enforce provisions benevolent to enable transgender students the use of restrooms that correlate with their gender identities or potentially required such an affected person to use a transgender person’s preferred pronoun. That has not happened, the requirements are still provisional for the states in question. 
 
The action of the Supreme Court does not impact on the states that did not fight the regulation and they will continue to be under the rule. 
 
Sotomayor, Kagan and Jackson were all in the minority, along with conservative Justice Neil Gorsuch — they dissented in part to the majority’s order. 
 
Sotomayor’s full dissenting statement can be read here”In dismantling the Government’s ability to enforce scores of regulations that respondents never challenged and that have no apparent connection to respondents’ alleged injuries, the lower courts went beyond their remedial authority to account for the discrete harms alleged in this case,” she pointed. “These are the injunctions that this Court wants to remain in force and they will impose more burden on the Government than is warranted. ” 
 
The regulation at issue was promugated in April by the Education Department and its scope covers all ost entities involved in education that operate a receive federal funds. 
 
Besides, the rule has other requirements that were not disputed, such as new protections for pregnant and postpartum students and workers. The regulation, for example, provides for access to lactation spaces and restrooms for pregnant students. 
 
Of the 50 states, 26 filed complaints against the regulation and 22 got court orders that would hinder full implementation of the rule by the administration. 
 
The Supreme Court action related to the challenges in two different cases, one filed in Kentucky and the other in Louisiana, which had managed to enjoin the entire suite of regulations in their states. 
 
In Kentucky, six states headed by one of the plaintiffs, ten would-be plaintiff states and local governments joined the lawsuit together with some individual plaintiffs and, in another suit, Louisiana headed four other states with ten other local governments. 
 
In both cases, federal judges enjoined the entire regulation as to the plaintiffs and appeals courts refused to limit the injunctions to bar a remedy at the lower court, compelling the administration to appeal to the Supreme Court. 
 
Prelogar said in documents filed to the court that the lower court judges had erred in stopping provisions that the challengers never deemed relevant. 
 
Additionally, she continued that the Education Department’s ruling that gender identity falls under Title IX protection should stand because as she described, it is a ‘plain and simple’ regard of Supreme Court recent decision that gender identity is protected under Title VII law that addresses employment bias. 
 
The challengers responded in legal documents that the whole rule should be enjoined as, in the words of Louisiana Attorney General Elizabeth Murrill, who filed the papers: “This redefinition of sex discrimination infects all 423 pages. ”