COVINGTON, Kentucky – A federal judge has issued a preliminary injunction stopping the U.S. Department of Education from “implementing, enacting, enforcing or taking any action in any manner” regarding the Biden administration’ recent Title IX regulation.
West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey co-led a six-state coalition in suing the DoE over its overhaul of Title IX of the Educational Amendments Act. Morrisey called the changes “onerous,” also saying it would harm West Virginia students, families and schools.
“This is a big victory for women and girls because the Title IX revisions being pushed by the Biden administration would have ended sex-based protections for biological women in locker rooms, bathrooms, sports and elsewhere, plain and simple,” Morrisey said. “This is a retreat from the progress women have made. …
Morrisey
| Courtesy photo
“We must honor and defend the success of Title IX to guarantee its benefits flow to the generations of girls and women to come.”
District Judge Danny C. Reeves issued his memorandum opinion and order June 17.
“This case concerns an attempt by the executive branch to dramatically alter the purpose and meaning of Title IX through rulemaking,” Reeves wrote. “But six states, an association of Christian educators and one 15-year-old girl object. As they correctly argue, the new rule contravenes the plain text of Title IX by redefining ‘sex’ to include gender identity, violates government employees’ First Amendment rights, and is the result of arbitrary and capricious rulemaking.
“If the new rule is allowed to take effect on August 1, 2024, all plaintiffs will suffer immediate and irreparable harm. Because the plaintiffs are likely to prevail on the merits of their claims, and the public interest and equities highly favor their position, the new rule will be enjoined, and its application stayed.”
In the case, Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys represent a West Virginia female athlete and Christian Educators Association International. The athlete client is a 15-year-old girl who was forced to compete against a transgender athlete on her middle school track-and-field team.
“Despite society’s enduring recognition of biological differences between the sexes, as well as an individual’s basic right to bodily privacy, the Final Rule mandates that schools permit biological men into women’s intimate spaces, and women into men’s, within the educational environment based entirely on a person’s subjective gender identity,” Reeves wrote. “This result is not only impossible to square with Title IX but with the broader guarantee of education protection for all students.”
Title IX prohibits sex-based discrimination in any school or any other education program that receives funding from the federal government. It always has allowed the sex-segregated spaces — such as bathrooms and locker rooms — that are ubiquitous across the nation.
Morrisey and the other AGs in the coalition say the DoE changes would abolish sex-based distinctions in educational activities and programs and force states “to accept radical gender ideology in their schools.”
“If DoE’s unauthorized rewrite of Title IX is allowed to stand, West Virginia schools could allow males self-identifying as female — in every grade from preschool through college — to use girls’ and women’s bathrooms and locker rooms, play on girls’ and women’s sports teams, and access other female-only activities and spaces or risk losing billions in federal funding,” Morrisey’s office says in a press release. “The sweeping Title IX mandate would upend schools’ long-lawful practices protecting student privacy, unfairly undermine women’s academic and athletic achievements and related advancement in society, and punish states for following their laws.
“Federal bureaucrats have no right to rewrite the statutes Congress passes, let alone fundamentally change what it means to be a man or a woman.”
Indiana, Ohio and Virginia joined the West Virginia-, Tennessee-, and Kentucky-led lawsuit.
Last week, a federal judge in Louisiana issued a similar preliminary injunction that covers the states of Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana and Idaho.
“The Biden administration’s radical redefinition of ‘sex’ will upend the equal opportunities that women and girls have enjoyed for 50 years under Title IX and will threaten their safety and privacy at every level,” said Hal Frampton, ADF senior counsel who argued before the court. “The court was right to halt the administration’s illegal efforts to rewrite Title IX while this critical lawsuit continues.
“Our female athlete client has already suffered the humiliation and indignity of being harassed by a male student in the locker room and on her sports team. No one else should have to go through that. We are pleased the court ruled to uphold safety and privacy while this lawsuit continues.”
ADF attorneys also said Tennessee and Kentucky have laws that would protect the privacy and free speech of teachers who are members of Christian Educators Association International and teach in schools covered by Title IX. But those state laws and the protection they provide to ADF clients and people like them would be wiped away by the administration’s new Title IX rules. ADF is a non-profit legal organization committed to protecting religious freedom, free speech, parental rights and the sanctity of life.
U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky case number 2:24-cv-00072
