Title IX Expansion Halted: Supreme Court Delays Protections for Transgender Students
Title IX of the Education Amendments Act, established in 1972, states “no person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance”. In short, no one will be discriminated against and excluded from any activities regarding education due to their sex which meant that members of both sex had the same educational opportunities. Later in 2024, the Biden administration expanded this act by adding new regulations that include not just sex, but also encompasses sexual orientation and gender identity.
Although this expansion mandated and benefited a larger population, many states disagreed with this new act. As a result, two challenges, which originated from Kentucky filed by six other states and Louisiana by four states, filed a lawsuit to bar this new act as they disagreed with the Biden administration’s decision on this expansion. This not only allowed these states that disagreed with this new act to have an opportunity to ban this new act from their state, but also allowed these states to put a halt to this temporary act as a law that is currently being brought to legal action cannot be implemented into law. This means that this law isn’t applied and people won’t need to follow this law when the law is questioned in court.
Due to this factor, the Biden administration wanted to block these impending lawsuits that would halt their new act. The Biden administration sought to block these lawsuits to ensure that the expanded protections under Title IX could be implemented without delay which would safeguard the rights of individuals based on sexual orientation and gender identity. But in 2024, the Supreme Court denied this action from the Biden Administration as the court ruled 5-4 in favor of not allowing the Biden Administration to block the incoming lawsuits but to let the newly made act be allowed to go through the normal lawsuit process. Therefore, they concluded that they can’t apply the new Title IX without going through with the new process, halting the entire process and delaying the ratification of this new section of the law.
After a prolonged debate between both sides, the Supreme Court finalized by stating that the justices could not find a sufficient demonstration that the three argued provisions could be separated from the rest, and therefore decided to let the 10 states challenging the New Title IX to not be required to enforce the law in their respective states. Until the law has gone through and been decided in the lower courts, Title IX cannot be enforced in the 10 states involved with the legal challenges.
Overall, this Supreme Court ruling had a profound impact on the transgender students in the states that were involved with the legal challenges. With this new ruling, schools in these 10 states are not required to implement protection policies that allow transgender students to use their respective bathrooms and locker rooms according to their gender identity. It also leaves transgender students vulnerable to what is considered to be harassment that specifically targets transgender students in regard to their preferred pronouns. Finally, it also leaves transgender students vulnerable to being excluded from education programs or activities such as sports due to the new temporary Supreme court ruling.
