The Patriot Post® · Title IX Overreach Thwarted by SCOTUS — For Now

In a 5-4 decision that came down last Friday — to the relief of hundreds of school districts in the affected areas — the Supreme Court upheld a temporary stay on enforcement of Team Biden’s new Title IX rules. According to The Daily Wire, those rules would “force schools that receive public funding to allow trans-identifying males into girls’ bathrooms, locker rooms, and sports,” as well as “eviscerate due process protections for students accused of sexual assault, protections that had been put into place under the Trump administration.”

However, the rules still took effect in states — mostly ones under Democrat control — that did not contest the new Biden/Harris administration rules in court. The Supreme Court ruling only applied to states that sued for relief, as well as a limited application in other local school districts where plaintiffs in one case (filed in Kansas) go to school.

In a case of the baby needing to be thrown out with the bathwater, the plaintiffs argued against three provisions of Joe Biden’s rules: “The first recognizes that Title IX’s prohibition on sex discrimination covers gender identity; the second broadens the definition of ‘hostile-environment harassment’ to include harassment based on gender identity; and the third clarifies that a school violates Title IX when it prohibits transgender students from using restrooms and other facilities consistent with their gender identity.” In a secondary argument, the states contended that keeping some portions of the new rules while maintaining others “would sow widespread confusion.” In fact, “Teachers would only have days, at most, before school starts, to understand their obligations under the judicially blue-penciled rule. And that uncertainty and harm would equally affect parents and students.”

The contention is whether these portions of the 423-page mandate are separable from the overall rule. The states argued they were not, and SCOTUS agreed.

In the Kansas case, among the plaintiffs was an Oklahoma middle-school girl, only identified as K.R. In her case, “K.R. states that she has encountered biological males using the girls’ restroom in her school. She was very uncomfortable using the restroom with a biological male and did not feel safe. Because she didn’t feel safe, she remarkably refused to use the restroom at school during this time period in which transgender students were allowed to use the restroom which corresponded with their gender identity. Although most of the biological males using the girls’ restroom identified as females, K.R. attested that on some occasions biological males who did not identify as female used the girls’ bathroom because they knew they could get away with it.”

Boys taking advantage of girls? It’s unheard of.

Others in the Kansas case objected based on their religious beliefs and fear of punishment: “The members declare that they and their children have deeply-held religious beliefs regarding gender identity and transgender issues similar to the beliefs of K.R. They also share the belief that individuals should use the bathroom that aligns with their biological sex. The members further state that their children share those views and have expressed them at their schools. Similar to K.R., their children have continued to use pronouns that align with biological sex based on their religious beliefs. They fear, however, that the Final Rule will subject them to school discipline for expressing statements related to gender identity.”

These are among the rules the Biden/Harris administration wanted to enforce on all school children, at least those in schools that receive federal funding.

And while it may be a rhetorical stay of execution for now, help could be on the way. When the rules were announced back in the spring to take effect this month, Donald Trump promised to reverse them “on day one.”

Herein lies a problem with an overreaching federal government, regardless of who’s in office. The Biden/Harris rules overturned rules changed by the Trump administration in 2020. Trump’s rules modified previous ones put in place by the Obama administration, which in turn had revised the precedent put in place by the George W. Bush administration. Lather, rinse, repeat.

Maybe if we go back to having local and state boards of education in charge, these issues could work themselves out as the people want them to, not as bureaucrats in far-off Washington deem best.