(The Center Square) – A federal court struck down the Department of Education’s guidance on Title IX on Thursday, and critics of the changes to the federal antidiscrimination statute celebrated the action as a legal win with wide-ranging ramifications.
The judgment from the United States District Court from the Eastern District of Kentucky sided with Republican-led states and private organizations and individuals, saying that the Biden administration’s rewrite to include gender identity in the law violated the Constitution.
“This is a huge win for Tennessee, for common sense, and for women and girls across America,” said Tenessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti.
The Department of Education did not immediately respond to Chalkboard’s request for comment on whether the agency will try to appeal the decision.
Tennessee, Kentucky, Indiana, West Virginia and private organizations and individuals filed a lawsuit challenging the Biden administration rule earlier this year, alleging it was unconstitutional and harmful to students.
“The court’s ruling is yet another repudiation of the Biden administration’s relentless push to impose a radical gender ideology through unconstitutional and illegal rulemaking,” Skirmetti said in a news release. “Because the Biden rule is vacated altogether, President Trump will be free to take a fresh look at our Title IX regulations when he returns to office …”
Betsy DeVos, the former education secretary during President-elect Donald Trump’s first term, said on X that “the radical, unfair, illegal, and absurd Biden Title IX rewrite is GONE.”
Conservative activists celebrated the news.
Tiffany Justice, a co-founder of Moms for Liberty, said that parents won and Biden lost.
“The Court standing up for parents’ rights is AMAZING,” Justice wrote on X. “The U.S. Constitution matters, and no federal law can compel the speech of pronouns in support of gender ideology nonsense in public school – K-12 or colleges.”
“Huge win for girls and women everywhere!” Riley Gaines, an activist and athlete, wrote on X, formerly Twitter. “This morning, a federal court ruled in favor of reality. Biden’s Title IX rewrite has been vacated nationwide.”
The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression said that the court’s decision protects students’ rights beyond K-12.
“As expected, courts have continued to find it impossible to justify the Biden administration’s changes to Title IX rules eviscerating students’ speech and due process rights,” Tyler Coward, FIRE’s lead counsel for government affairs.
The provisions in question would have pertained to the Title IX process for colleges and universities.
“When campus administrators investigate the most serious kinds of campus misconduct, they should use the time-tested tools that make finding the truth more likely,” Coward said in a statement provided to Chalkboard. “We don’t get closer to justice when those tools are not on the table. The long and short of it is: Now that administrators must use the 2020 regulations, America’s college students will be more likely to receive justice.”
