A federal judge in Texas said Tuesday that the Biden administration improperly attempted to rewrite a federal law banning sex discrimination in schools by applying it to LGBTQ students.
U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor in Fort Worth, Texas, ruled in a lawsuit brought by the state’s Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton that the legal guidance issued three years ago by the U.S. Department of Education was invalid because the agency lacked the authority to adopt it. and whether it is enforceable in Texas.
The non-legally binding guidance says schools can be denied federal funding for discriminating against students based on gender identity or sexual orientation, such as by requiring students to use bathrooms and other facilities that correspond to the sex they were assigned at birth. .
In 2022, Tennessee already had one federal judge He blocked the Department of Education From applying in 20 Republican-led states that have separately sued to overturn the rule. The Biden administration is appealing this decision.
Leadership was the answer to the milestone 2020 US Supreme Court decision It said the federal law banning gender bias in the workplace expands protections for LGBTQ workers. The Education Department said the same logic applies under Title IX because the two statutes use similar language.
But O’Connor said in a 112-page ruling that the Department of Education had no authority to apply that decision to the education law, Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972.
“To allow the defendants’ wrongful conduct to stand would be to functionally rewrite Title IX in a way that would shockingly transform American education and seize a fundamental question from Congress,” wrote O’Connor, a Republican appointee of former President George W. Bush.
The Department of Education and the US Department of Justice did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
In a statement, Paxton said the ruling thwarted Democratic President Joe Biden’s “effort to weaponize Title IX for his extremist agenda.”
“Threatening to cut off education funding by forcing states to adopt ‘transgender’ policies that put women at risk was patently illegal,” Paxton said.
In April, the Department of Education adopted formal, binding regulations that apply Title IX to LGBTQ students. Tuesday’s ruling does not affect rules in place in Texas and other states is protesting in courtbut suggests that they may be vulnerable to claims.
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