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The new rule protecting LGBTQ+ students in schools accepting federal funds took effect in the rest of the country on Thursday.
President Biden’s Title IX rule barring discrimination in schools and colleges based on an individual’s sexual and gender identity took effect in nearly half the country on Thursday. However, the rule remained blocked in 26 states after the U.S. Supreme Court declined a request from the Biden administration to lift lower court injunctions blocking full enforcement of the rule.
Administration lawyers petitioned the Court to intervene in two lawsuits that named the Department of Education and Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona among others. The first, State of Louisiana v. U.S. Department of Education, was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana by Louisiana, Idaho, Mississippi, Montana, and various local Louisiana school boards. The second, State of Tennessee v. Cardona, Tennessee, Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio, Virginia, West Virginia, and a Christian educators association was filed in the U.S. District of the Eastern District of Kentucky.
Two other lawsuits currently in lower courts also challenged the new rule, but those cases were not covered in the ruling.
RELATED: Federal judge halts Biden’s new Title IX gender identity protections rule
The four lawsuits have resulted in injunctions barring enforcement of the new rule in a majority of the country.
The lawsuits challenge whether the Department of Education has gone beyond the scope of its authority granted by Congress to whether the administration defied the original intent of the 1972 legislation when it expanded the definition of banning discrimination “on the basis of sex” to include sexual and gender identity.
RELATED: Title IX court battles explained
Title IX is part of the Education Amendments of 1972 amending the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to ban sex discrimination in any educational program that receives federal funds. It was signed into law by then-President Richard Nixon. The rules apply to K-12 schools as well as colleges and universities.
