The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday rejected the Biden administration’s efforts to temporarily stay a federal court decision blocking the implementation of a key part of new Title IX rules for schools.
The judges’ order allows a decision by the US District Court in Eastern Kentucky to block the rules for the time being. Reeves had sided with Kentucky Attorney General Russell Coleman and five other Republican attorneys general, including Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares, in a lawsuit against the new Title IX rules, which are intended to protect transgender students, among other things.
A federal appeals court also declined to put Reeves’ decision on hold last month; the court will hear an appeal of Reeves’ decision in October.
“The Court expects the appellate courts to issue their decisions with due promptness,” the Supreme Court justices wrote in the majority opinion.
The order also agreed to leave in place another federal court decision blocking new Title IX rules that had been separately introduced by the Louisiana attorney general and three other Republican attorneys general.
In a statement on the order, Coleman said Republican attorneys general would defend equal opportunities for women and young girls.
“The Biden-Harris administration is threatening to undo 50 years of Title IX protections. … we are fighting to uphold the promise of Title IX for generations to come,” Coleman said.
Title IX addresses sex discrimination in all schools that receive federal funds.
US Secretary of Education Miquel Cardona had previously said in a statement that the new Title IX rules would “build on the legacy of Title IX by making clear that all of our nation’s students have access to schools that are safe, welcoming and respectful of their rights.”
The rules, which would have taken effect on August 1, were designed to roll back Trump administration changes that narrowly defined sexual harassment and ordered schools to hold live hearings to give those accused of sexual harassment or assault the opportunity to cross-examine their accusers.
Indiana, Ohio, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia joined Kentucky in challenging the administration’s order. When Miyares announced in May that Virginia had joined the lawsuit, he said, “We cannot roll back Title IX in the name of false justice.”
Conservative Justice Neil Gorsuch joined liberal Justices Ketanji Brown Jackson, Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor in dissenting from Friday’s ruling. Their opinion focused on the lower courts’ overbroad ruling in blocking any government changes to Title IX.
Among the policy changes that have not been challenged are those for pregnant and postpartum students. For example, schools will be required to provide breastfeeding rooms for mothers and special toilets for pregnant students.
“By preventing the government from enforcing a variety of regulations that respondents never challenged and that had no discernible connection to respondents’ alleged harms, the lower courts exceeded their authority to remedy the harms alleged here,” Sotomayor wrote.
Greg LaRose of the Louisiana Illuminator contributed to this report.
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