Supreme Court declines to lift blocks on Biden administration’s education anti-discrimination rule

The Supreme Court on Friday rejected the Biden administration’s plea to partially lift two injunctions barring the Education Department from enforcing most of its Title IX rule.

The regulation, which took effect earlier this month, interprets the federal education law that bars sex-based discrimination to include protections based on gender identity, sexual orientation and pregnancy status. It also overhauls much of the Trump-era policy that mandates how schools must respond to sexual misconduct.

Splitting 5-4 along an unusual divide, the high court said the Biden administration had “not provided this Court a sufficient basis to disturb the lower courts’” findings that the challenged gender identity and sex discrimination protections were “intertwined with and affect other provisions of the rule.”

The ruling is a major blow to the administration’s efforts to strengthen protections for transgender students and leaves in place the complicated patchwork of Title IX policies across the country as the school year begins.

The dissent: Conservative Justice Neil Gorsuch joined with the court’s three liberals in a partial dissent, signaling that they would have allowed the administration to implement most of the other parts of its policy nationwide.

In a nine-page opinion joined by all the dissenters, liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor said there was no reason to block the whole policy because of the provisions the lower courts found unlawful.

“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. She also noted that one provision the administration would not be able to implement nationally involves schools’ obligations to provide students with accommodations for breastfeeding.

The Education Department said it still supports its rule.

“While we do not agree with this ruling, the Department stands by the final Title IX regulations released in April 2024, and we will continue to defend those rules in the expedited litigation in the lower courts," an agency spokesperson said in a statement.

Spokespeople for the Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Key context: More than two dozen Republican attorneys general sued over the rule, saying it weakens the rights of students accused of misconduct and fails to protect sex-separated programs and spaces, such as locker rooms. They also argued it would conflict with some of their state laws that block transgender students from participating in women’s sports — though the Biden administration insists the regulation does not address athletics eligibility. In addition, the red states said the executive branch overstepped its authority with the rule.

The Biden administration has lost nearly every legal battle over its new regulation in the lower courts. The Education Department has been enjoined from enforcing the new policy in more than two dozen states and hundreds of schools in other states. Only one federal district court has ruled against blocking the regulation in four states, but that was quickly overturned by an appellate court.

Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar asked the Supreme Court to uphold most of its rule because the bulk of the complaints have primarily focused on the gender identity provisions.

Previously, the high court’s conservative majority had at least twice declined to weigh in on high-profile cases related to transgender students and state laws that bar them from women’s sports or policies that prohibit them from using facilities that align with their gender identity.

What’s next: The decision issued Friday on emergency applications filed by the Biden administration is not a final determination on the legality of the new rule. The legal fight over the regulation could still return to the high court in the future.