Missouri court blocks updated Title IX protections for LGBTQ students

The Thomas F. Eagleton U.S. Courthouse in St. Louis, home of the United States District Court of the Eastern District of Missouri (Rebecca Rivas/Missouri Independent).

A federal judge in St. Louis on Wednesday halted implementation of a Biden administration rule that extends protections for LGBTQ students, adding to the number of U.S. courts that have issued similar orders.

The ruling by U.S. District Judge Rodney W. Sippel of the Eastern District of Missouri came in a lawsuit filed on May 7 by Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin and the attorneys general of Missouri, Iowa, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota.

Sippel’s order enjoins the U.S. Department of Education, Education Secretary Miguel Cardona and others from “implementing, enacting, enforcing or taking action in any manner to enforce” the nondiscrimination rule promulgated by the department that was set to take effect on Aug. 1. The order halts implementation of the rule until final resolution of the lawsuit.

Although the rule protects all students from nondiscrimination based on sex in educational activities and programs, opponents have focused on the extension of the protections to transgender students.

At a May press conference announcing the lawsuit, Griffin, Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey and a 15-year-old Jonesboro-area student athlete who is a named plaintiff focused on that aspect of the rule.

In a statement Wednesday, Griffin said Sippel’s “ruling is a victory for women and girls in Arkansas and across the nation.”

“Congress enacted Title IX to protect and promote educational opportunities for women and girls,” Griffin said, focusing again on fears that transgender girls would be allowed into women’s and girl’s locker rooms and onto girls’ sports teams.

The ruling “also protects teachers, administrators, and students from the threat of investigation or sanction for disagreeing with the gender ideology of the Biden-Harris White House. And it comes just in time before the start of the new school year,” Griffin said.

The lawsuit filed by Arkansas and the five other states argued the education department has exceeded its authority by rewriting the statute. It also claimed the rule violates the First Amendment, is arbitrary and capricious by going against “decades” of understanding of Title IX and presents “an actual controversy” by redefining “sex” to include gender identity.

Sippel’s ruling notes that his decision is consistent with other federal courts that have also blocked implementation of the Title IX rule. More than two dozen Republican attorneys general have sued over the rule and at least two federal appeals courts have upheld lower court rulings similar to the one issued Wednesday.

U.S. District Judge Terry Doughty of Louisiana issued a temporary injunction on June 14 that blocks the updated Title IX policy from taking effect Aug. 1 in Idaho, Louisiana, Mississippi and Montana. The U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans upheld that order.

The U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati also upheld a district court injunction against the Title IX rule affecting 20 states, including Oklahoma.

On Monday, the Biden administration asked the U.S. Supreme Court to temporarily put on hold a portion of two injunctions issued by federal trial courts in Louisiana and Kentucky that affected 10 states, according to SCOTUSblog. Federal appeals courts in New Orleans and Cincinnati rejected the Department of Education’s request to allow it to temporarily enforce the rule, except for two provisions targeting discrimination against transgender students while its appeals continued.

This story was originally published by the Arkansas Advocate, a States Newsroom affiliate.