Department of Education v. Louisiana
The Supreme Court refused to partially lift nationwide injunctions that had blocked the Biden administration's new Title IX rule — which redefined sex discrimination to include gender identity — leaving the entire rule on hold in the states that challenged it.
All nine justices agreed that the rule's three gender-identity-related provisions were properly blocked for now, but the Court split 5–4 over whether provisions unrelated to gender identity, such as pregnancy accommodations and retaliation protections, should have been allowed to take effect in the meantime.
“Importantly, all Members of the Court today accept that the plaintiffs were entitled to preliminary injunctive relief as to three provisions of the rule, including the central provision that newly defines sex discrimination to include discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity.”
The Court highlighting the one thing all nine justices agreed on — that three specific provisions were properly blocked.
How it got here: District courts in Louisiana and Kentucky blocked the entire new Title IX rule in the plaintiff states; the Fifth and Sixth Circuits declined to stay those blocks; the federal government brought emergency applications to the Supreme Court seeking partial stays.
The Case in Depth
What happened
The Department of Education issued a sweeping new rule in 2024 updating Title IX regulations, most notably redefining "sex discrimination" to include discrimination based on gender identity and sexual orientation. Several groups of states sued, arguing the gender-identity provisions exceeded Congress's intent. Federal district courts blocked the entire new rule — not just the disputed gender-identity provisions — from taking effect in the plaintiff states. The federal government asked the Supreme Court to lift those blocks, at least as to the provisions no one actually challenged.
The question before the Court
Could the Education Department get nationwide injunctions against its new Title IX rule partially lifted — allowing provisions unrelated to gender identity to take effect — while courts decided whether the rule's gender-identity provisions were lawful?
The Court's answer
No — the Court denied the federal government's requests to partially lift the injunctions. All nine justices agreed that three specific provisions were properly blocked for now: the new definition of sex discrimination (which added gender identity), a provision about access to sex-separated spaces consistent with gender identity, and a revised hostile-environment harassment standard. The legal dispute before the Court was about the remaining, unchallenged provisions — things like pregnancy accommodations, retaliation protections, and updated grievance procedures.
The Court said the government had not provided a sufficient basis to disturb the lower courts' conclusion that the challenged provisions are too intertwined with the rest of the rule to neatly separate. The government also failed to specifically identify which remaining provisions could stand on their own while the contested definitions were blocked. Because the government did not meet its burden, and because the courts of appeals were already moving quickly toward a decision, the Court left the full injunctions in place.
Curious how the Court got there? See the step-by-step legal reasoning →
Why it matters
Students and school employees in more than a dozen states will continue operating under old Title IX rules while litigation proceeds, losing access to updated protections the new rule provided — such as explicit pregnancy accommodations, revised grievance procedures, and retaliation safeguards — none of which were actually challenged in the lawsuits. The ruling is temporary and leaves the legal validity of the new rule entirely unresolved.
What changes now
The preliminary injunctions remain fully in force in the plaintiff states, blocking all of the new Title IX rule — including unchallenged provisions — while litigation continues. The Sixth Circuit had already scheduled expedited oral argument for October 2024, and the Court signaled it expects the appeals courts to move quickly. Once those courts rule, the case could return to the Supreme Court. This order resolves nothing about whether any part of the new rule is ultimately lawful.
What this does not decide
The Court did not decide whether the new Title IX rule — or any of its provisions — is actually lawful. Every justice agreed the three gender-identity provisions were properly blocked for now, but the underlying legal questions about all provisions await rulings from the Fifth and Sixth Circuits and potentially the Supreme Court on the merits.
Concurrences and dissents
Dissent in part — Justice Sotomayor
Justice Sotomayor, joined by Justices Kagan, Gorsuch, and Jackson, would have granted most of the government's stay requests, narrowing the injunctions to cover only the three actually challenged provisions rather than the entire rule. She argued that traditional equity principles require courts to tailor relief to the injuries actually alleged, and that blocking dozens of provisions — like pregnancy accommodations and retaliation protections — that respondents never challenged and had no apparent connection to their injuries went beyond what was necessary to redress their harms.
How the Court got there
The legal reasoning, step by step
- The Court applied the standard emergency-stay test, which requires the side asking for relief to show, among other things, a likelihood of success on the legal argument being pressed and that the broader equities favor a pause. Here the government's core argument was 'severability' — the idea that the challenged provisions could be cut out and the rest of the rule allowed to operate independently.
- The lower courts had concluded, at least tentatively, that the gender-identity definition of sex discrimination is intertwined with and affects many other parts of the new rule, making it hard to apply some provisions while others are blocked. The government needed to show those courts were likely wrong about this, but the Court found it had not done so on the limited emergency record.
- The government also failed to specifically identify which individual provisions it claimed were sufficiently independent of the enjoined gender-identity definition to operate without it — a gap the Court said left the stay request without enough factual support to act on.
- On the equities side of the test — weighing the harm to each party — the Court noted that the Sixth Circuit had already expedited its review of the case and scheduled oral argument for October, meaning a decision from the appeals courts was expected soon, reducing the urgency for Supreme Court intervention.
- Because the government did not carry its burden on either severability or the equities, the Court denied both stay applications and left the full preliminary injunctions blocking the entire rule in place pending the appeals courts' decisions.