Department of Education v. Louisiana
Headline: Court denies emergency requests and keeps injunctions blocking the Education Department’s new Title IX rule, including its definition covering sexual orientation and gender identity, from taking effect in the affected States.
Holding: The Court refused the Government’s emergency requests to partially lift injunctions, finding insufficient showing that the disputed gender-identity provisions are severable and that the public interest and equities justify a stay while appeals proceed.
- Keeps the new Title IX rule blocked in the plaintiff States while appeals proceed.
- Prevents schools in those States from enforcing the rule’s gender-identity protections for now.
- Deprives the public in those States of the rule’s new requirements and protections during appeals.
Summary
Background
The Department of Education issued a new Title IX rule that defines sex discrimination to include sex stereotypes, sex characteristics, pregnancy, sexual orientation, and gender identity. Several States and school entities sued, arguing the rule exceeded what Congress authorized. Two district courts preliminarily enjoined enforcement of the entire rule in the plaintiff States. The Government appealed and asked this Court for partial emergency stays while the appeals proceed in the Fifth and Sixth Circuits.
Reasoning
The core question was whether parts of the rule could be allowed to take effect while appeals continue. All Members of the Court agreed the plaintiffs were entitled to interim relief as to three provisions: the new definitional provision including sexual orientation and gender identity, the rule on access to sex-separated spaces, and the rule’s definition of hostile-environment harassment. The Government asked the Court to sever those provisions so the rest could operate. The Court denied that request because, on the emergency record, the Government did not show a strong likelihood that the disputed provisions are separable or identify which provisions could work independently. The lower courts had found the definitions intertwined with other parts of the rule, and this Court declined to disturb those interim findings.
Real world impact
The denial leaves the district courts’ injunctions in place in the plaintiff States, so schools and state officials there cannot enforce the new rule while appeals proceed. That means many parts of the rule remain paused in those States, and affected parties must await the Courts of Appeals’ expedited decisions. The ruling is temporary and could change after appellate rulings.
Dissents or concurrances
Justice Sotomayor, joined by three colleagues, dissented in part and would have narrowed the injunctions to the three challenged provisions while allowing the rest of the rule to take effect, arguing the broad injunctions are overbroad and unnecessarily deprive the public of unrelated protections.
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