The Department of Justice (DOJ) asked the Supreme Court to take emergency action on Monday to restore parts of President Biden’s Title IX rule in a handful of Republican-led states where the new regulations are blocked, arguing that the injunctions of Lower courts suspending the rule in its entirety are “more onerous” than necessary.
In April, the Department of Education unveiled a final set of sweeping changes to Title IX, the federal civil rights law that prohibits sex discrimination in schools and education programs that receive government funding. The new rule, which covers discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity for the first time, drew swift criticism from Republicans, who claimed the new regulations undermine the original intent of Title IX, triggering a flurry of multistate lawsuits.
Federal judges sided with the states in three cases, blocking the administration’s rule from taking effect in 15 GOP-led states while legal challenges to the rule played out in the courts. The remaining states must still implement the changes by August 1st.
The rule is also blocked from taking effect at any school attended by a child of a member of Moms for Liberty, a conservative political group, or at any school attended by members of Young America’s Foundation, an organization for conservative young people.
On Monday, U.S. Attorney General Elizabeth Prelogar asked the Supreme Court to limit district court injunctions blocking the administration’s Title IX rule in 10 states: Tennessee, Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana, Virginia, Virginia Western, Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana and Idaho.
The injunctions, she argued, should apply only to the rule’s ban on gender identity discrimination — the provision at the heart of lawsuits challenging new Title IX regulations, which also strengthen protections for pregnant and parenting students and change the way schools deal with complaints of sexual abuse. harassment and aggression.
States have not challenged “the vast majority” of changes made to Title IX, Prelogar wrote on Monday. “Instead, they object to three distinct provisions of the Rule relating to discrimination against transgender individuals,” she wrote.
States and conservative leaders have long argued that the administration’s Title IX rule misinterprets a 2020 Supreme Court ruling that protects employees from discrimination based on gender identity.
The rule also faced criticism from Republicans for potentially requiring schools to allow transgender students to use bathrooms, locker rooms and pronouns that match their gender identity, running afoul of laws passed in more than a dozen GOP-led states.
“The district court found that defendants’ challenges are likely to be successful and issued a preliminary injunction. But the court refused to adapt the injunction to the two provisions of the Rule that are the source of the defendants’ alleged injuries — or even to the three provisions they challenged on the merits,” Prelogar wrote on Monday. “Instead, the court enjoined the entire Rule, including dozens of provisions that defendants did not challenge and that the court did not intend to find likely invalid.”
“Just a few months ago, this Court granted a partial stay because a district court had entered a sweeping injunction that disregarded the fundamental principle that equitable relief should not be ‘more burdensome to the defendant than is necessary to repair’ the damages of the plaintiff,” she added, referring to a May Supreme Court ruling that restricted a lower court order to allow Idaho to enforce its criminal ban on gender-affirming care for minors.
“Several judges warned that ‘[l]The higher courts would be wise to heed this reminder about the limits of their equitable powers,” Prelogar wrote. “The lower courts here ignored that warning and this Court’s intervention is again necessary.”
This story originally appeared on thehill.com read the full story
