The federal government asked the Supreme Court on Monday to protect Title IX while lower courts weigh whether the anti-discrimination law gives transgender students the right to use locker rooms and bathrooms of their choice.
The request is in response to two injunctions issued by lower courts against transgender-friendly changes announced by the Biden administration in April to Title IX, the federal law that prohibits discrimination in government-funded educational programs.
The Western District of Louisiana and the Eastern District of Kentucky blocked the changes after challenges from a group of red states.
The states took issue with the administration’s attempt to force schools to allow biological males who identify as female and biological females who identify as male to use the bathrooms and locker rooms of their choice.
The two lower courts reasoned that states could likely succeed in their challenges to the federal government’s rule implementation and issued a broad injunction that halted the Department of Education from enforcing the rule in the states involved in the litigation.
But the Department of Education warns that the injunctions could block more of Title IX than intended, including provisions that protect record-keeping requirements and pregnant and postpartum students and employees.
U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar, on behalf of the Department of Education, asked the justices to narrow the injunctions to the gender-identity provisions related to discrimination, harassment and transgender students using separate facilities as the litigation works its way through the courts.
The states involved in the litigation with Louisiana against the Department of Education are Mississippi, Montana and Idaho.
And the states involved in the Eastern District of Kentucky litigation are Kentucky, Tennessee, Indiana, Ohio, Virginia and West Virginia.
• Alex Swoyer can be reached at aswoyer@washingtontimes.com.
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