SCOTUS Declines to Enforce Protections for LGBTQ Public School Students

by Karen Faulkner, Worthy News Correspondent

(Worthy News) – The US Supreme Court last week (August 16) rejected a request by the Biden administration to enforce a new federal rule that Title IX’s prohibition of discrimination in public schools “on the basis of sex” includes discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity, Reuters reports.

The court’s 5-4 decision was given an unsigned order; conservative Justice Neil Gorsuch joined the three liberal Justices in dissenting,

Unveiled in April, the Biden administration’s new federal rule was established under Title IX to protect homosexual and gender-questioning students in public schools from being discriminated against, Reuters reports.

The rule was intended to take effect on August 1, but the Republican-led states of Tennessee, Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana, Idaho, Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana, West Virginia, and Virginia successfully filed suit in the lower courts to block it.

In a statement announcing the new rule, US Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Catherine Lhamon said: “These final regulations clarify Title IX’s requirement that schools promptly and effectively address all forms of sex discrimination. We look forward to working with schools, students, and families to prevent and eliminate sex discrimination.”

However, Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill called the new rule a government overreach based solely on political concerns.”This is all for a political agenda, ignoring significant safety concerns for young women students in pre-schools, elementary schools, middle schools, high schools, colleges, and universities across Louisiana and the entire country,” Murrill said in a statement.

“These schools now have to change the way they behave and the way they speak, and whether they can have private spaces for little girls or women. It is enormously invasive, and it is much more than a suggestion; it is a mandate that well exceeds their statutory authority,” Murrill added.

Latest Worthy News