States, Including Florida, Win Injunction Against Title IX Regulations

TALLAHASSEE, Florida. – An appeals court agreed with Florida and three other states and on Wednesday temporarily put a hold on new federal rules on sex discrimination in education programs.

The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has granted a motion filed by Florida, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina and four other plaintiffs seeking an “administrative injunction” against a provision of Title IX, the landmark 1972 law that prohibits discrimination in educational programs on the basis of sex.

The states and other plaintiffs filed the motion late Tuesday night, hours after U.S. District Judge Annemarie Carney Axon issued a 122-page decision denying their request for a preliminary injunction against the Title IX regulations.

In its order issued Wednesday, the Atlanta-based appeals court said the U.S. Department of Education is barred from enforcing the rule “until further order is issued by this court.” The order did not explain the reasons for the order but set a timeline for the plaintiffs to seek an “injunction pending the outcome of the appeal.” Such an injunction, if granted, would apply throughout the appeal of Axon’s decision — likely blocking the Title IX rule for months.

The legal fight is largely focused on a change that would expand Title IX to cover discrimination based on gender identity. The rule, finalized in April, was set to go into effect Thursday.

States say the rule could force them to do things like allow transgender students to use restrooms that don’t correspond to the sex they were assigned at birth.

“The regulations require a series of radical changes to schools that receive federal money,” the plaintiffs’ lawyers wrote in a motion for an administrative order filed late Tuesday night.

But U.S. Justice Department lawyers argued in a response Wednesday that the motion should be denied, saying the plaintiffs “seek an immediate injunction from the (appellate) court that would prevent defendants from implementing a portion of the soon-to-be-effective regulation — in essence, a preliminary injunction that the district court properly exercised its discretion to deny.”

Axon, an Alabama federal judge appointed to the position by former President Donald Trump, said in her decision that the plaintiffs did not present a sufficient argument to obtain a temporary injunction.

“Plaintiffs must, among other things, show a substantial likelihood of success on the claims asserted in their complaint in order to obtain a preliminary injunction from this Court,” Axon wrote. “They have failed to meet that burden.”

Axon wrote in part that the plaintiffs failed to adequately support their claims that the Biden administration’s actions were arbitrary and capricious. The states alleged violations of a law known as the Administrative Procedure Act.

“The court emphasizes that, at later stages of the proceedings, more carefully crafted legal arguments and the benefit of a fuller evidentiary record may yield a different result,” Axon wrote. “However, the court declines to exercise its discretion to grant the extraordinary relief (preliminary injunction) sought by plaintiffs.”

The legislation and the lawsuit, filed in April in the federal Northern District of Alabama, come amid a flurry of efforts in Florida and other Republican-led states in recent years to pass LGBTQ laws and regulations. For example, states have blocked transgender students from using school restrooms that don’t match their birth sex and have blocked or restricted treatments like puberty blockers and hormone therapy for people with gender dysphoria.

The lawsuit alleges that the Biden administration exceeded its legal authority by expanding Title IX to include discrimination based on gender identity. It also argues that the provision would conflict with state decisions.

“This rule conflicts with numerous Plaintiffs’ state laws that govern public institutions of higher education and elementary and secondary education, including laws regarding harassment, bathrooms, sports, parental rights, and more,” the lawsuit says. “This rule impedes Plaintiffs’ state sovereign authority to enforce and administer their laws and pressures Plaintiffs to change their laws and practices.”

But in a letter filed in district court, Justice Department lawyers wrote that a temporary injunction “would substantially harm the government’s interest in preventing such discrimination.”

“Sex discrimination in educational settings has devastating consequences, including harassment based on sexual orientation and gender identity,” the Justice Department wrote.

In a motion filed late Tuesday in Atlanta’s U.S. Court of Appeals, plaintiffs’ lawyers said courts in other districts and circuits across the country have issued preliminary injunctions against the rule. The motion said the administrative order was needed to “preserve the status quo” and cited things like the costs of complying with the rule.

“Here, the rule upends the status quo by requiring schools to process hundreds of pages of new regulations, change policies, retrain staff, and more,” the motion says. “The rule itself estimates that compliance will cost millions.”

However, Justice Department lawyers said the plaintiffs knew since April that the rule was to take effect on Aug. 1.

“The status quo has always been during these three months that the rule would go into effect and that Plaintiff would be required to comply,” Justice Department lawyers wrote in a Wednesday response. “If Plaintiff waited until yesterday afternoon to begin taking action to comply, this is a crisis of their own making.”

The lawsuit names the U.S. Department of Education and Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona as defendants. In addition to the states, the other plaintiffs are four groups: Independent Women’s Law Center, Independent Women’s Network, Parents Defending Education, and Speech First.