WASHINGTON — The Biden administration’s new Title IX rules expanding protections for LGBTQ+ students have been temporarily blocked in four states after a federal judge in Louisiana ruled that the Education Department exceeded its authority.
In a preliminary injunction issued Thursday, U.S. District Judge Terry A. Doughty called the new rules an “abuse of power” and a “threat to democracy.” Her order blocks the rule in Louisiana, which challenged it in April, and in Mississippi, Montana and Idaho, which joined the lawsuit.
The Education Department defended the rules and said it was reviewing the judge’s order.
“The Department of Education supports the Title IX final rules published in April 2024 and will continue to fight for all students,” the department said in a statement.
The Louisiana lawsuit is one of at least seven backed by more than 20 Republican-led states challenging the Biden administration’s regulations, which are set to take effect in August, to extend Title IX civil rights protections to LGBTQ+ students, broaden the definition of sexual harassment in schools and universities and add additional protections for victims.
Judge Doughty, an appointee of former President Donald Trump, was the first to block the provision, a major blow to the new protections that had been praised by civil rights activists but repelled by opponents who said they undermined the spirit of Title IX, a 1972 law that bans sex discrimination in education.
Louisiana is among several Republican states with laws that require students to use restrooms and locker rooms based on the sex they were assigned at birth and restrict transgender students from using facilities that match their gender identity. President Joe Biden’s rules contradict those laws and argue they override them.
In the Louisiana lawsuit, the judge argued that the new rules would force schools in the four states to pay millions of dollars to upgrade their facilities, calling it an “infringement of state sovereignty” and concluding that the states were likely to prevail on the merits of the case.
His order said the rule likely violates free speech laws by requiring schools to use students’ preferred pronouns, and it also raised questions about whether the Biden administration has the legal authority to extend Title IX to LGBTQ+ students.
“The Court finds that at the time this Act was enacted, the term ‘sex discrimination’ included only discrimination against biological males and females,” Judge Doughty wrote in his order.
The judge expressed concern that the rule could force schools to allow transgender women and girls to compete on girls’ sports teams. Some Republican-leaning states have laws banning transgender girls from competing on girls’ teams.
The Biden administration has proposed a separate rule that would prohibit such a blanket ban, but the newly finalized rule would not apply to athletics, though Doughty said it could still be interpreted to apply to the sport.
“The final rule applies to sex discrimination in any education ‘program’ or ‘activity’ that receives Federal financial assistance,” he wrote. “The terms ‘program’ or ‘activity’ are not defined, but could include sports teams at a school that receives assistance.”
Judges in at least six other cases are considering whether to issue similar injunctions to the Biden administration.The Institute for Defense of Liberty, a right-wing nonprofit that backed the Louisiana lawsuit, praised Doughty’s order.
“We are confident that other courts and states will follow suit soon,” said Bob Eitel, the nonprofit’s president and a senior education official in the Trump administration.
Biden issued the new rules after repealing another rule enacted by Trump’s Education Secretary Betsy DeVos that narrowed the definition of sexual harassment and added protections for students accused of sexual misconduct.
Taking to the social media platform X on Thursday, DeVos called the Louisiana ruling a victory and said Biden’s “radical, misogynistic rewrite of Title IX is not only insane, it’s illegal.”
