The decision comes about a year after a group of 20 conservative attorneys general filed a lawsuit against two federal agencies over their interpretation of the landmark 1972 civil rights law, known as Title IX, which banned sex-based discrimination in educational programs and activities that receive federal funding and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibited employers from discriminating against employees on the basis of race, religion, or sex. Last year, those agencies, the Department of Education and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, at the direction of President Biden, said the protections provided under Title IX and Title VII would be extended to gay and transgender people and would be enforced in workplaces and in schools. In those guidelines, the agencies said companies and schools could not deny a transgender person access to a bathroom that corresponds to that person’s gender identity. They also said students should be allowed to play on a sports team consistent with their gender identity and that federally funded schools have a responsibility to investigate gender discrimination, including sexual harassment, against students because of of their sexual orientation or gender identity. The suit filed by Herbert H. Slater III, Tennessee’s attorney general, and 19 other states argued that the government was infringing on states’ powers to regulate their public workplaces and schools. The attorney general also said the administration violated federal law by failing to follow proper procedures to implement those orders.
50 Years of Title IX
The landmark gender equality legislation, signed into law in 1972, transformed women’s access to education, sports and more.
The Biden administration argued that the regulations were consistent with a 2020 Supreme Court ruling that said Title VII prevented employers from firing someone for being gay or transgender. The administration also asked that the lawsuit be dismissed in part because it had not begun to implement the guidelines. The judge, Charles E. Atchley Jr. of the Federal District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee, an appointee of former President Donald J. Trump, sided with the plaintiffs and denied a request to dismiss the lawsuit, issuing a preliminary injunction against enforcement of the injunctions until the courts can decide the matter . It was unclear what the next step would be. Judge Atchley said in his ruling that further decisions could be made by his court, the US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit or the US Supreme Court. The White House did not respond to requests for comment. The judge’s ruling comes as several states debate and pass laws barring transgender girls from competing in girls’ sports. Eighteen states bar transgender youth from participating in school sports based on their gender identity, according to the Movement Advancement Project, a research group that analyzes local and state LGBTQ laws. The Biden administration’s directives were part of a broad effort by the White House to rescind or revise several Trump administration policies that limited transgender rights. In the Supreme Court’s 2020 decision, Justice Neil M. Gorsuch, writing for the majority, said that “it is impossible to discriminate against a person because he is gay or transgender without discriminating against that person on the basis of sex ». Before this ruling, it was legal in more than half of the states to fire workers for being gay, bisexual or transgender. State attorneys general had argued in their case that power over these matters “properly belongs to Congress, the States, and the people.” On the side of the states, Justice Atchley wrote that their “sovereign authority to enforce their own legal code is impeded” by the government’s guidance on civil rights law and that the states faced “substantial pressure to change their state laws as a result”. The judge also wrote that the Biden administration’s directives went beyond what the Supreme Court ruling dictated. Jennifer C. Pizer, the acting general counsel of Lambda Legal, a national civil rights organization, said in a statement that the decision showed “a disturbingly closed view of this area of law,” adding that several federal court decisions demonstrate that the federal sex discrimination standards applied in this case and that the judge ignored the Constitution’s Supremacy Clause, which makes federal law “supreme” over conflicting state laws. He also said that “for these many states to argue so aggressively that they should be free to discriminate against their own residents is disturbing and appalling.” States joining Tennessee as plaintiffs were Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska , Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota and West Virginia.
