8.16.24 – SCOTUS Blog
“Supremes Block Temporary Enforcement of Expanded Protections for Trans Students”
By Amy Howe
Excerpts from this article:
The Supreme Court on Friday rejected the Biden administration’s request to be allowed to temporarily enforce most of an April 2024 rule implementing Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, which prohibits sex discrimination in education programs that receive federal funding, WHILE ITS APPEALS CONTINUED.
Friday’s ruling leaves in place for now decisions by federal appeals courts that barred the Biden administration from enforcing any portion of the rule, including three provisions that target discrimination against transgender people in schools…
The orders came in two separate challenges – one filed in Kentucky by six states and one in Louisiana by four states.
Both challenges focused on three provisions of the April 2024 rule that target discrimination against transgender people.
(1) The first provision recognizes that Title IX’s ban on sex discrimination includes discrimination based on gender identity.
(2) A second provision at issue in the case makes clear that schools violate Title IX when they bar transgender people from using bathrooms and locker rooms consistent with their gender identity.
(3) And a third provision defines “hostile-environment harassment” to include harassment based on gender identity, which the states say could require students and teachers to refer to transgender students by the pronouns that correspond to their gender identity.
In June, federal trial courts blocked the Department of Education from enforcing any part of the 2024 rule in the 10 states bringing the challenge.
Federal appeals courts in New Orleans and Cincinnati then turned down the federal government’s request to allow it to temporarily enforce all of the rule…
In a three-page unsigned opinion issued on Friday afternoon [8.16.24], the [U. S. Supreme] court turned down the Biden administration’s request to be allowed to implement most of the rule.
The justices [Supremes] first explained that they all agreed that the three provisions should remain on hold for now, “including the central provision that newly defines sex discrimination to include discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity.”
… the justices concluded, the government [Biden’s Dept. of Education] has NOT given the court “a sufficient basis to disturb the lower courts’ interim conclusions that the three provisions likely to be unlawful are intertwined with and affect other provisions of the rule.”
…Challenges to the April 2024 rule are also pending elsewhere, including in Texas, Kansas, Alabama, Oklahoma, and Missouri.
MORE INFORMATION
8.16.24 -- “Texas Judge Expands Protections For Texas Women and Girls” – by Texas Values -- https://txvalues.org/texas-judge-expands-protections-for-texas-women-and-girls/