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    • Louisiana opposes narrowing of injunction against Biden’s Title IX rule • Louisiana Illuminator
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    Louisiana opposes narrowing of injunction against Biden’s Title IX rule • Louisiana Illuminator

    Harry Posted on

    NEW ORLEANS — A panel of federal appeals court judges heard arguments Monday from Louisiana’s attorney general, who does not want to implement new rules that President Joe Biden has proposed protecting transgender students.

    Three U.S. 5th Circuit judges are considering a preliminary injunction that a federal judge in Louisiana granted in June that temporarily blocks Biden’s new Title IX policy from going into effect. Title IX is a major federal civil rights law that prohibits discrimination based on sex. Similar injunctions exist in nearly half the states, and at least one is likely to make its way to the U.S. Supreme Court. Idaho and Montana have also joined Louisiana’s lawsuit and are also subject to the current injunction.

    Lawyers representing Louisiana argued before the panel of judges: Don Willett, a federal court appointee by former President Donald Trump; Jerry Smith, a Ronald Reagan selection; and Biden’s Dana Douglas said the measure should not be narrowed by provisions in the rules aimed at limiting discrimination against transgender students because of the use of the term “gender identity” throughout the policy.

    Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill argued that substituting gender identity for biological sex would subvert the purpose of Title IX. Gender identity refers to the gender an individual identifies with, which may be different from the gender assigned to them at birth.

    “The government has used the new terminology in a way that is intertwined throughout the rules, so you can’t separate the two,” Murrill said in an interview after the hearing. He described the new rules as follows:Relentless attack on women and girls by the Biden administration.

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    Attorney Jack Starcher, who defended the U.S. Department of Education’s rules, argued that the scope of Louisiana’s injunction should be narrowed.

    Other parts of the new rules include stronger protections for pregnant students and measures aimed at better supporting those who have been sexually harassed. While the state’s debate centers on K-12 schools, the measure also blocks enforcement on college and university campuses.

    “It’s impossible to explain what you’re doing when you discriminate against someone (on the basis of gender identity) without relying on biological sex,” Starcher said in defending gender identity terminology.

    Lawyers representing the state countered this, presenting a scenario in which a nonbinary student, or someone whose gender identity falls outside the male-female binary, could be excluded from a student-run religious organization, regardless of biological sex.

    Conservative judges on the panel appeared to support the state’s reasoning. Smith was particularly outspoken in his comments about the state’s arguments regarding intramural sports.

    “Women won’t be able to benefit from educational services if they don’t want this big, big-bodied man to compete against them,” Smith said in response to Starcher’s allegations.

    While the new Biden rules do not address competitive sports, physical education classes may need to include transgender students.

    Starcher argued that if athletics were what Louisiana was interested in, it should drop that measure and seek an area limited to intramural sports.

    But Natalie Thompson, an attorney with the Christian legal advocacy group Alliance Defending Freedom, who argued on behalf of the state, said the issue is not athletics but the federal government’s “linguistic gymnastics.”

    Lawyers also argued over whether the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision was valid. Bostock – Clayton County Relates to the Title IX Rule. bostock like that In 2020, a landmark civil rights decision held that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits employment discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin, also protects employees from discrimination on the basis of sex and sexual orientation.

    The 5th Circuit panel may ultimately approve, strike down, or narrow the measure. Murrill said it could take months for a decision to emerge.

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