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CV NEWS FEED // A federal district court Thursday morning threw out the outgoing Biden administration’s pro-LGBTQ rewrite of Title IX, which critics say undermined women’s and girls’ sports. The ruling applies to the entire country.
The U.S. District Court for the Eastern Division of Kentucky’s decision in the case Tennessee v. Cardona states that the administration’s “Final Rule and its corresponding regulations exceed the Department’s authority under Title IX.”
In addition, the court ruled that the rewrite violates the U.S. Constitution and is “the result of arbitrary and capricious agency action.”
The Court wrote later in its ruling, that “expanding the meaning of ‘on the basis of sex’ to include ‘gender identity,’” as called for by the administration’s rewrite “turns Title IX on its head.”
Title IX is a 1972 landmark civil rights law that prohibits discrimination in schools on the basis of sex, including in sports programs. The Biden administration’s change added the language of “gender” and “sexual orientation” to those antidiscrimination laws.
Critics of the administration’s rewrite of the law have consistently contended that it would force female athletes to compete against males who consider themselves to be “transgender.”
Republican Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti took to X (formerly Twitter) calling the ruling a “massive win for TN and the country!”
“The court’s order is resounding victory for the protection of girls’ privacy in locker rooms and showers, and for the freedom to speak biologically-accurate pronouns,” wrote Skrmetti, whose state was a plaintiff in the case.
Retired collegiate swimmer and women’s sports advocate Riley Gaines similarly called the ruling a “win for girls and women everywhere!!!”
“Common sense is slowly returning,” she added.
According to a news release from the conservative Christian legal group Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), the Tennessee v. Cardona ruling “applies nationwide and to every part of the Biden Title IX rule, meaning the rule is completely invalidated, and the U.S. Department of Education is unable to enforce it—anywhere.”
Per the release, ADF “attorneys represent a West Virginia high-school female athlete and Christian Educators Association International in the lawsuit alongside the state of Tennessee.”
ADF President Kristen Waggoner hailed the ruling as a “colossal win for women and girls across the country.”
“With this ruling, the federal court in Kentucky rejected the entire Biden rule and the administration’s illegal actions,” Waggoner continued. “This ruling provides enormous relief for students across the country, including our client who has already suffered harassment by a male student in the locker room and on her sports team.”
The ADP president indicated that following the federal district court ruling, the Supreme Court “can further protect girls like our client by granting cases brought by the ACLU against West Virginia and Idaho laws that protect women’s sports.”
>> AUGUST 2024: BIDEN’S TITLE IX REWRITE TARGETS WOMEN’S SPORTS <<
Republican Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares also celebrated the ruling.
“All of America is now safe from Biden’s attempt to undermine half a century of landmark protections for women,” Miyares wrote on X.
Tiffany Justice, co-foundress of the leading parents’ rights group Moms for Liberty wrote in an X post: “Parents win. Biden loses. Again.”
“The Court standing up for parents rights is AMAZING,” Justice added. “The US 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.”
The Family Research Council (FRC) wrote on X: “We are relieved that there will be no federal mandate to redefine sex to include gender identity through Title IX.”
“There is still much work to do to root gender ideology out of governments everywhere, at all levels,” the FRC added.
