Second court pushes pause on Biden admin's attempted hijack of Title IX

COVINGTON, Ky. – A Kentucky district court ruled Monday to immediately halt the Biden administration’s illegal rewrite of Title IX while the lawsuit, State of Tennessee v. Cardona, moves forward. This is the second injunction that Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys have obtained to stop the administration’s unlawful Title IX rule.

On Thursday, a federal district court in Louisiana issued the first preliminary injunction against the Biden administration in another ADF case, Rapides Parish School Board v. United States Department of Education. This prior injunction covers the states of Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana, and Idaho. And this new injunction from the Kentucky district court covers the states of Tennessee, Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana, Virginia, and West Virginia.

“The Biden administration’s radical redefinition of ‘sex’ will upend the equal opportunities that women and girls have enjoyed for 50 years under Title IX and will threaten their safety and privacy at every level,” said ADF Senior Counsel Hal Frampton, who argued before the court. “The court was right to halt the administration’s illegal efforts to rewrite Title IX while this critical lawsuit continues. Our female athlete client has already suffered the humiliation and indignity of being harassed by a male student in the locker room and on her sports team. No one else should have to go through that. We are pleased the court ruled to uphold safety and privacy while this lawsuit continues.”

As the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky wrote in its decision, “Nonetheless, despite society’s enduring recognition of biological differences between the sexes, as well as an individual’s basic right to bodily privacy, the Final Rule mandates that schools permit biological men into women’s intimate spaces, and women into men’s, within the educational environment based entirely on a person’s subjective gender identity. This result is not only impossible to square with Title IX but with the broader guarantee of education protection for all students.”

In the case, ADF attorneys represent a West Virginia high-school female athlete and Christian Educators Association International.

The athlete client is a 15-year-old girl in West Virginia who was forced to compete against a male athlete on her middle school track-and-field team. The male displaced her several times, even taking away her spot to compete in a conference championship. The male athlete was also given access to the girls’ locker room, and the client had to endure vulgar, sexual comments that the athlete directed at her. The male athlete has finished ahead of almost 300 female competitors in three years of competition on the girls’ team.

ADF attorneys also noted that Tennessee and Kentucky have laws that would protect the privacy and free speech of teachers who are members of Christian Educators Association International and teach in schools covered by Title IX. But those state laws and the protection they provide to ADF clients and people like them would be wiped away by the administration’s new Title IX rules.

Alliance Defending Freedom is an alliance-building, non-profit legal organization committed to protecting religious freedom, free speech, parental rights, and the sanctity of life.

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