Supreme Court denies Title IX rule expansion protecting LGBTQ+ students
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The Supreme Court on July 30 in Washington, DC. Photo: Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images
The Supreme Court on Friday denied an emergency request from the Department of Justice to enforce updates to a federal rule that bars sex-based discrimination in education.
Why it matters: The decision effectively halts a Biden administration rule that would have extended Title IX, a 1972 civil rights law, to include expanded protections for LGBTQ+ students.
Zoom in: The 5-4 decision from the high court rejected a request to allow some parts of the rule, largely those that don't pertain to gender identity, to go into effect in states where challenges that address transgender issues are playing out in lower courts.
- "On this limited record and in its emergency applications, the Government has not provided this Court a sufficient basis to disturb the lower courts' interim conclusions that the three provisions found likely to be unlawful are intertwined with and affect other provisions of the rule," the unsigned order reads.
- Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who dissented, wrote: "By blocking the Government from enforcing scores of regulations that respondents never challenged and that bear no apparent relationship to respondents' alleged injuries, the lower courts went beyond their authority to remedy the discrete harms alleged here."
Catch up quick: A federal judge last month temporarily blocked the Biden administration rule's extending Title IX after a lawsuit brought by attorney generals in a number of Republican-led states.
- At least 20 states blocked the new policy over similar complaints.
Context: The federal rule protects against "discrimination based on sex stereotypes, sexual orientation, gender identity, and sex characteristics."
- The policy did not address transgender athletes, and the Department of Education has said its "rulemaking process is still ongoing for a Title IX regulation related to athletics."
- The changes were supposed to take effect Aug. 1.
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