A US federal court Wednesday blocked the Department of Education’s Final Rule prohibiting sex discrimination against LGBTQ+ students from taking effect in six states.
The plaintiffs in the suit were Arkansas, Iowa, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota and South Dakota. The states sought to block revised regulations which expanded Title IX discrimination protection to LGBTQ+ students.
Interpretation of the word “sex” in Title IX was the central issue. The law prohibits discriminatory treatment in schools on the “basis of sex.” The Department of Education interpreted this term to include sexual orientation based on a US Supreme Court ruling, Bostock v Clayton County. In that decision, the court held that the phrase “because of … sex” prohibited employers from making employment decisions based on an individual’s sexual orientation or gender identity. The court’s reasoning was that “when an employer discriminates against a person for being gay or transgender, the employer necessarily discriminates against that person for traits or actions it would not have questioned in members of a different sex.”
The plaintiff states argued against this broader interpretation. The US District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri agreed and found that the Department of Education inappropriately applied the Bostock interpretation of “sex” as Bostock was a workplace human rights case interpreting different civil rights legislation, Title VII. Judge Rodney Sippel held that the plaintiffs met their “preliminary burden of demonstrating that they have a fair chance of prevailing on their argument that the Department [of Education] exceeded its statutory authority and/or acted in contravention of the law in expanding the definition of sex-based harassment.”
Wednesday’s ruling is the latest in a series of recent federal court rulings that have blocked the regulation from taking effect. This lawsuit was one of eight launched by 26 states in response to the proposed Title IX protections. The Department of Education’s final rule is now temporarily blocked from taking effect in 21 states and being challenged in another five, according to Edweek. The new regulations were due to come into force on August 1, 2024.
Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 was landmark legislation that prohibited sex-based discrimination in schools or other education programs that received federal government funding.
