Biden’s Trans School Discrimination Rule Struck Down Nationwide

A Biden administration rule barring discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity in federally funded schools goes too far, a federal judge in Kentucky said Thursday as he struck it down.

The Education Department, when crafting the rule that was set to go into effect in 2024, exceeded its authority as it interpreted how educators in schools that receive federal funding must follow Title IX, wrote Chief Judge Danny C. Reeves of the US District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky. Adding gender identity to the rule “turns Title IX on its head,” Reeves wrote.

“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,” wrote Reeves, an appointee of President George W. Bush.

The judge, in ending a lawsuit first brought by the states of Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia, ordered that the rule be vacated, rendering it unenforceable in the waning days of President Joe Biden’s administration.

It also may have taken another item off incoming President Donald Trump’s list of things to do once he takes office, as he was widely expected to rescind the rule.

Multiple federal judges had temporarily blocked the rule’s enforcement in more than half of states. The US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit heard arguments in October on Reeves’ preliminary injunction for the six challenging states in the case in front of him, though it has yet to rule.

Reeves shot down arguments from the federal government that the US Supreme Court’s 2020 holding in Bostock v. Clayton County, which said Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 protects employees against discrimination because of sexual orientation or gender identity, applied to the education-focused Title IX rule.

The Education Department reads the high court’s precedent “far too broadly,” the judge wrote, adding that the justices “expressly limited its holding to Title VII and, even in that restricted context ‘[did] not purport to address bathrooms, locker rooms, or anything else of the kind.’”

Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti (R) said in a statement that “the court’s ruling is yet another repudiation of the Biden administration’s relentless push to impose a radical gender ideology through unconstitutional and illegal rulemaking.”

Kristen Waggoner, the CEO of the religion-focused legal organization Alliance Defending Freedom, which represents the group Christian Educators and an intervening plaintiff student athlete, called the ruling “a colossal win for women and girls across the country” in a statement.

The federal government is represented by the Justice Department. The states are represented by their respective attorneys’ general offices. Christian Educators and the student athlete are also represented by Omega Law PLLC.

The case is Tennessee et al v. Cardona, E.D. Ky., No. 2:24-cv-00072, 1/9/25.