Federal judge halts Biden admins rewrite of Title IX to include gender identity

A federal judge has blocked the Biden administration’s attempt to rewrite Title IX to interpret “sex” as including all “gender identities,” which Republicans and conservatives charge would have allowed biological men to use women’s bathrooms and locker rooms.Lexington, Ky.US District Chief Judge Danny Reeves ruled Thursday that the Education Department had exceeded its constitutional authority in issuing a rule that expanded the definition of “sex” for the purposes of filing discrimination complaints or letting people use restrooms corresponding to their “gender identity.”“As this Court and others have explained, expanding the meaning of ‘on the basis of sex’ to include ‘gender identity’ turns Title IX on its head,” Reeves wrote.There were also First Amendment concerns in implementing the rule, Reeves noted, given that it would compel people to use other pronouns for those selecting an alternative “gender identity.”“Congress gave the [Education] Department authority to issue rules, regulations, and orders to effectuate Title IX’s prohibition on sex discrimination consistent with the objectives of the statute.

However, the Department exceeded that authority in issuing the Final Rule and the text of Title IX shows why,” he said.“Put simply, there is nothing in the text or statutory design of Title IX to suggest that discrimination ‘on the basis of sex’ means anything other than it has since Title IX’s inception — that recipients of federal funds under Title IX may not treat a person worse than another similarly-situated individual on the basis of the person’s sex, i.e., male or female,” he added.Reeves, an appointee of former President George W.Bush, determined that the provisions challenged by more than a dozen GOP-led states were flatly unconstitutional, though the full rule also included other protections for handling claims of sex harassment and assault.Republican attorneys general in Virginia, West Virgini...