A Kentucky federal judge blocked the Biden administration Monday from implementing its Title IX expansion for LGBT students in six states.
Bush-appointed U.S. District Judge Danny Reeves sided with Kentucky Attorney General Russell Coleman’s lawsuit against the United States Department of Education (ED) in blocking the Biden administration’s new Title IX rule in Tennessee, Kentucky, Indiana, Ohio, Virginia and West Virginia, according to the court documents.
The new Title IX rule, set to take effect on Aug. 1, 2024, expands protections for LGBT students by preventing discrimination based on “gender identity.”
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The complaint was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky, and it alleges “the Department has used rulemaking power to convert a law designed to equalize opportunities for both sexes into a far broader regime of its own making.” Reeves limited the injunction to the six plaintiff states.
“The new rule contravenes the plain text of Title IX by redefining ‘sex’ to include gender identity, violates government employees’ First Amendment rights, and is the result of arbitrary and capricious rulemaking,” Reeves states in the court ruling.
Reeves siding with Coleman’s lawsuit follows in the same steps of Trump-appointed U.S. District Judge Terry A. Doughty blocking Biden’s Title IX rule in four Republican states last week.
Biden’s ED has suffered a string of losses over the expansion in recent weeks, with Trump-appointed U.S. District Judge Terry A. Doughty blocking the rule in four Republican states on Thursday.
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Title IX, created in 1972, “protects people from discrimination based on sex in education programs or activities that receive federal financial assistance”, according to the DOE. “Title IX applies to schools, local and state educational agencies, and other institutions that receive federal financial assistance from the Department.”
“It would have been hard to find any who thought that discrimination because of sex meant discrimination because of sexual orientation — not to mention gender identity, a concept that was essentially unknown at the time,” Reeves said in the court ruling.
President Joe Biden’s rule expansion doesn’t mention transgender athletes, an issue that has spurred contentious debate in localities across the country.
The Department of Education didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
First published by the Daily Caller News Foundation.
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