A federal court blocked the Education Department from enforcing new regulations aimed at protecting transgender students in schools, finding that opponents who sued to stop it are likely to prevail when the case is fully considered.
The ruling only directly impacts four states, but with a half-dozen similar cases making their way through the courts in other states, the order injects new uncertainty for schools just seven weeks before the sweeping new rules are supposed to take effect.
The regulations, issued in April, represent the Biden administration’s interpretation of Title IX, a half-century old law that bars discrimination in schools based on sex. The rules impact every K-12 school, college and university in the country that accepts federal funding.
The regulations direct that discrimination based on sex includes discrimination based on gender identity and sexual orientation, and would require, for instance, schools to allow transgender students to use bathrooms and locker rooms that align with their gender identity and to use students’ preferred pronouns.
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The administration delayed action on the controversial topic of participation in athletics, though opponents argue that the rules issued in April would also require schools to allow transgender women to participate on women’s and girls’ teams.
The April regulation was challenged in federal court by four states — Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana and Idaho, and the preliminary injunction applies in only those states. Thursday’s order was the first ruling in any of the pending cases.
The injunction, which affects the entire regulation, was issued Thursday by U.S. District Judge Terry A. Doughty, chief of the Western District of Louisiana and a Trump appointee, who wrote that protecting “biological males” as if they were female subverts the purpose of Title IX. He said the regulation represented an “abuse of power” on the part of the Biden administration, which he said went beyond what Congress intended in crafting the original statute.
“Title IX was enacted for the protection of the discrimination of biological females. However, the Final Rule may likely cause biological females more discrimination than they had before Title IX was enacted,” he wrote. “By allowing biological men who identify as a female into locker rooms, showers, and bathrooms, biological females risk invasion of privacy, embarrassment, and sexual assault.”
The administration had ordered that the rules take effect Aug. 1, so they could be in place for the coming school year. This week’s ruling puts that plan into jeopardy and adds to confusion swirling around the issue. An appeal from the Biden administration was expected, and it could take months or years for the issue to move through the courts.
In the meantime, other courts may issue similar or conflicting rulings. And some conservative state officials have already told schools in their states to ignore the federal rules, forcing administrators to choose whether to follow federal or state directives.
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If different courts issue conflicting rulings, it was possible that the rules could take effect in some parts of the country but be kept on hold in other parts. Ultimately, the matter may be decided by the Supreme Court.
“I think it’s going to be a jumbled mess,” said Vanessa Kelly, an attorney who co-chairs the Title IX and Campus Discipline group at the law firm Clark Hill. “You could be left with this patchwork.”
Already, schools have faced a set of constantly changing rules on Title IX, with policies in place during the Obama administration thrown out by the Trump administration, and the Trump policies replaced under President Biden.
And if Donald Trump wins in November, his administration could go through a new rule-making process to replace the Biden regulations and perhaps return to those crafted under Education Secretary Betsy DeVos.
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The federal rules stand in direct contrast to laws and policies enacted by conservative states and schools boards across the country that limit the rights of transgender students. For instance, more than 10 states have rules limiting use of bathrooms and facilities, according to tracking by the Movement Advancement Project. Some school boards bar students from changing their names or pronouns without parental permission or prohibit teachers from using pronouns that differ from sex assigned to the student at birth.
If it is allowed to stand, the federal regulation would trump state law and local policies.
The Biden administration regulation also sets out rules for how schools must respond to and adjudicate allegations of sex discrimination, including sexual assault, and the court found that some of the new standards are overly broad. But it is the rules around gender identity that have drawn the most opposition, and that were the focus of Doughty’s order.
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The Education Department is reviewing the ruling but stands by the regulations, said spokesperson Vanessa Harmoush. She said the rules were crafted “following a rigorous process” to assure that no person experiences sex discrimination in a federally funded educational environment. “We will continue to fight for every student,” she said.
The Human Rights Campaign, an advocacy group for the LGBTQ+ community, said it, too, would fight for the protections outlined in the regulation.
“Today’s decision prioritizes anti-LGBTQ+ hate over the safety and well-being of students in the state. This is MAGA theatrics with the dangerous goal of weaving discrimination into law,” Kelley Robinson, the group’s president, said in a statement.
Opponents of the regulations celebrated. “Victory for women!” declared a tweet from Liz Murrill, attorney general in Louisiana, one of the plaintiffs in the case.
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“This is a tremendous victory, and we are confident we will continue to prevail in court,” said a statement from Idaho Attorney General Raúl R. Labrador, a second plaintiff.
Interest in the regulation has been intense, and the Education Department received a crush of more than 240,000 comments on its proposed version. The administration said its review of the comments showed its commitment to considering a wide range of views, but the federal court opinion slapped the agency for making only minor changes in response.
By putting off the question of whether trans women should be allowed to compete in girls’ and women’s sports, the administration for now avoided drawing attention to a politically difficult issue ahead of the fall election. A separate regulation on that question is pending.
But in his ruling, Doughty said the implication of the regulation that was issued is that schools would be forced to let transgender girls and women compete, which he argued would “essentially reverse the entire premise of Title IX,” which was aimed in part at giving girls and women equal access to sports.
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The Biden administration has long argued that Title IX’s protections extend to questions of gender identity and sexual orientation, but the April rules were the first time the Education Department put that interpretation into a binding regulation.
In issuing the rules, administration officials pointed to a 2020 Supreme Court ruling in Bostock v. Clayton County, which found sex discrimination in employment includes gender identity and sexual orientation. The same logic applies to Title IX, they said.
The judge rejected that interpretation, saying among other things that the high court has not specifically said whether its reasoning extends to other civil rights laws. He also argued that the underlying statutes differ.
