A federal judge on Jan. 9 scrapped the Education Department’s attempt to expand Title IX protections to people who identify as transgender, finding that the 2024 rule is illegal.
Title IX forbids discrimination on the basis of sex. It applies to schools that receive federal funding.
The Department of Education (DOE), in its rule, made it illegal to discriminate on the basis of gender identity and sexual orientation.
States sued, and a judge blocked the rule while the legal case proceeded. That judge, U.S. District Judge Danny C. Reeves, struck down the rule in the new decision.
The rule is arbitrary and capricious, in violation of federal law, because the DOE failed to account for the “glaring inconsistencies” it creates, including how it would prohibit schools from separating sexes in facilities such as bathrooms and showers, the judge wrote in a 15-page ruling….