In a closely divided 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court has blocked the Biden-Harris administration’s attempt to implement changes to Title IX, which would have redefined protections under the Civil Rights Act.
The Department of Education, led by Secretary Miguel Cardona, had introduced new rules that expanded the definition of biological sex to include gender identity, effectively extending protections meant for women to men who identify as women.
These changes sparked legal challenges from groups who argued that the revisions would undermine protections for women and girls. The new regulations, which were set to take effect on August 1, would have required all federally funded schools to allow boys who identify as girls to use female bathrooms, locker rooms, and other facilities.
This led to concerns about the safety and privacy of female students, with incidents such as a reported rape in Loudoun County, where a male student wearing a skirt assaulted a female student in a girls’ bathroom. The incident was allegedly covered up, and the victim’s father was arrested after raising the issue, fueling further controversy over the administration’s stance on parental rights in education.
The Supreme Court’s unsigned order stated, “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.”
Justice Sonia Sotomayor dissented, joined by the Court’s two other liberal justices and Justice Neil Gorsuch. They supported the lower court’s view that the injunction against the new rules was overly broad, arguing that the courts had overstepped by blocking the enforcement of regulations not directly challenged in the lawsuit.
“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,” Sotomayor wrote.
While the Supreme Court’s decision is not a final ruling on the legality of the new Title IX regulations, it keeps the injunctions in place as the cases proceed in lower appeals courts. The changes proposed by Cardona followed President Biden’s directive for federal agencies to develop more inclusive policies for LGBTQIA+ Americans.