Justices leave in place lower-court orders blocking Biden administration from extending Title IX

The Supreme Court on Friday rejected a Biden administration request to implement its overhaul of regulations barring sex discrimination in education, leaving in place temporary injunctions lower courts issued that put on hold new protections for transgender students, along with other provisions. A five-justice majority issued an unsigned order saying the administration hadn’t justified the high court’s intervention at this stage in the litigation, but noted that a federal appeals court had set an expedited schedule to consider the case, which pits Republican-led states opposed to expanding recognition of transgender students against Biden administration policy that seeks to expand protections for them. Four justices agreed that three provisions of the challenged regulations should remain blocked while the litigation continues. But they said the majority should have let the rest of the regulations, which implement the landmark law known as Title IX, go into effect. “Many unchallenged provisions (such as those governing preemployment inquiries about an applicant’s marital status or sex and prohibiting pregnancy discrimination) include no reference to gender identity discrimination,” Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in a partial dissent, joined by fellow liberal Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, as well as Justice Neil Gorsuch, a conservative who in 2020 wrote the court’s opinion extending civil rights protections to LGBT employees. The majority, however, agreed with lower courts that found it impossible to separate the new provisions focusing on transgender students from the rest of the regulations.

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