Biden admin asks SCOTUS to reinstate protections for pregnant students that GOP lawsuit stopped

The Department of Justice (DOJ) has asked the Supreme Court to take emergency action on Monday to help restore some of President Joe Biden’s new Title IX student protections after several Republican-led states successfully sued to block them in their entirety.

While the GOP states’ lawsuits against the new rules opposed the requirement that schools allow trans students to use the names, pronouns, and facilities matching their gender identity, the DOJ has asked the high court to implement the non-trans-related parts of Biden’s new rules that offer anti-discrimination protections for pregnant and parenting students as well as changes in how schools handle gender-based sexual harassment and assault claims, The Hill reported.

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After the Biden administration unveiled the new rules in April—and threatened to sue, investigate, and cut off federal funding for schools that don’t comply—Republican attorneys general successfully sued to block the rules from going into effect on the scheduled date of August 1. Federal court rulings in three cases blocked the rules in 15 Republican-led states as well as in schools attended by members of the Young America’s Foundation or a child of a member of Moms for Liberty, two conservative political groups that oppose trans rights.

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However, in its Monday filing, U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar represented the DOJ and argued that the lower court injunctions blocking all of the rule changes are “more burdensome” than necessary. Prelogar said that the injunctions should only apply to the new trans-related rules but that the rules regarding pregnant and parenting students, sexual harassment, and assault should be allowed to go into effect in 10 GOP-led states.

“[The states have not challenged] the vast majority [of changes made to Title IX],” Prelogar wrote. “Instead, they object to three discrete provisions of the Rule related to discrimination against transgender individuals.”

“[The lower courts] refused to tailor the injunction to the two provisions of the Rule that are the source of respondents’ asserted injuries — or even to the three provisions they have challenged on the merits,” Prelogar added. “Instead, the court[s] enjoined the entire Rule, including dozens of provisions that respondents had not challenged and that the court did not purport to find likely invalid.” 

It’s unclear when the Supreme Court might rule on the matter.

The Republican attorneys general who sued over the new rules argued that the Biden administration overstepped its legal authority by interpreting Title IX’s prohibitions on sex-based discrimination as applying to LGBTQ+ students. Such rule changes should have been decided and passed by Congress, the attorneys general argued.

However, the Biden administration based its interpretation on the Supreme Court’s 2022 Bostock v. Clayton County decision, which declared anti-LGBTQ+ discrimination as a form of sex-based discrimination under the legal argument that it’s impossible to discriminate against LGBTQ+ people without taking sex into account.

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