Title IX Rules Halted in Four More States

A third federal court has issued a preliminary injunction halting the August 1 implementation of new Title IX regulations in four additional states. The ruling from the U.S. District Court for the District of Kansas is just one of several challenges the Biden Administration’s Title IX priorities have faced this week, including a House-passed bill that would overturn the new regulations.

Like the other rulings, the court’s decision hinged on its determination that Title IX cannot be interpreted to encompass discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity. Kansas, Alaska, Utah, and Wyoming now join Mississippi, Louisiana, Montana, Idaho, Kentucky, Ohio, Tennessee, Indiana, Virginia, and West Virginia on the list of states where Title IX injunctions are in place.

The Biden Administration’s Title IX rules are also facing a challenge in Congress, where the House of Representatives passed a resolution of disapproval that would, if enacted, invalidate President Biden’s new Title IX regulations. The resolution, however, faces an unclear path in the Senate, and Biden is expected to veto the legislation in the unlikely event it makes it to his desk.

Finally, in yet another setback for the Biden Administration’s Title IX agenda this week, the Department of Education’s latest update to its regulatory agenda shows that the agency has shifted its Title IX rule on transgender sports participation off the list of immediate priorities, a move that indefinitely postpones publication of a final rule on Title IX athletics.