Following months of public and legal pushback, the Department of Education’s 2024 ruling on Title IX has been put to pasture.
The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky, which issued a temporary injunction on its implementation in June across six states, officially vacated the ruling, which appears to apply nationwide, reports Ogletree Deacons, an employment law firm. A previous rule set in 2020 during Donald Trump’s first presidential term will return, which offers a narrower definition of sex discrimination than what the current administration sought.
The now-defunct ruling, issued in April of last year, stretched Title IX beyond its intended scope, according to the court’s findings. The Education Amendments of 1972 sought to prohibit discrimination based on sex—not gender identity. As a result, the Biden Administration’s attempt to add protection for the LGBTQ+ community would have exceeded the Education Department’s authority.
The district court also found that the ruling obstructed the First Amendment by compelling teachers to refer to students by their preferred pronouns or face harassment claims.
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GOP-led states consider the court’s ruling a victory. At least 26 states, exclusively led by Republican legislatures, had sued over Biden’s mandate. “The court’s order is resounding victory for the protection of girls’ privacy in locker rooms and showers, and for the freedom to speak biologically-accurate pronouns,” wrote Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti on X.
Other ramifications by the court’s ruling
While the court’s reasoning for vacating the 2024 rendition of Title IX primarily focused on the issue of sex, gender identity and the First Amendment, other protections afforded by the updated ruling will be scrapped as well.
For example, Biden’s Department of Education also extended protections for pregnant women, which compelled institutions to provide pumping stations and grace periods for deadlines and exams.
“[I]t simply is not proper for the Court to rewrite the regulations by excising the offending material, particularly when rulemaking is the exclusive duty of the Executive Branch,” read the memorandum opinion.
