Dive Brief:
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The U.S. Department of Education’s plans to protect LGBTQ+ students under Title IX hit a roadblock Tuesday, as the U.S. Northern District Court of Texas ruled the department overstepped its authority in 2021 guidance that told states how to interpret the anti-sex discrimination statute and didn’t give states the chance to provide feedback before finalizing its interpretation.
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U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor’s order prevents the department from protecting Texas’ LGBTQ+ students under Title IX by blocking a string of department guidance documents released in June 2021. Those documents included a notice of interpretation that walked back the Trump administration’s decision to not protect LGBTQ+ students under Title IX.
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Texas originally filed the lawsuit in June 2023, and the decision stands separate from recent lawsuits against the Title IX final rule issued this past April. However, this decision in the first round of litigation against the administration’s Title IX interpretation signals hurdles ahead for the implementation of its final rule that also enshrines LGBTQ+ protections.
Dive Insight:
The department was already prohibited from relying on its 2021 guidance documents to protect LGBTQ+ students in 20 states as a result of a lawsuit brought by Republican state attorneys general that was decided in 2022.
That decision is currently being appealed, according to the Education Department.
In Texas’ 2023 lawsuit, Attorney General Ken Paxton argued that it sued partly because the department’s interpretation conflicted with its own state policies. “Joe Biden’s unlawful effort to weaponize Title IX for his extremist agenda has been stopped in its tracks,” Paxton said in a statement Tuesday responding to the injunction. “Threatening to withhold education funding by forcing states to accept ‘transgender’ policies that put women in danger was plainly illegal.”
Texas also filed the lawsuit “out of fear” that its schools would lose “critical federal funding,”according to the court opinion released on Tuesday.
The Education Department has repeatedly warned that schools that do not comply with Title IX, which it interprets to protect LGBTQ+ students, are at risk of losing federal funding. The agency’s Title IX rule cementing that interpretation — which was issued after a notice and comment period and supersedes its 2021 guidance — goes into effect Aug. 1, a deadline the department reiterated on Wednesday that schools are still obliged to follow.
“Every student deserves the right to feel safe in school,” a department spokesperson said in a statement responding to this week’s court decision in Texas. “The Department stands by the final Title IX regulations released in April 2024, which were crafted following a rigorous process to give complete effect to the Title IX statutory guarantee that no person experiences sex discrimination in federally funded education.”
Paxton filed a lawsuit in Texas in April against the Title IX rule in the same district court that issued a block on the prior guidance Tuesday.
At least 15 states have sued the department over its Title IX rule and many expect the issue to eventually reach the U.S. Supreme Court. All of those cases have pending motions for preliminary injunctions hoping to stop the final rule from going into effect. No court has yet ruled on those preliminary injunctions.
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