Federal judge rejects Title IX rewrite from Biden admin

A federal judge has denied the United States Department of Education rewrite of Title IX that would have given men access to women’s spaces.

United States District Court Judge Danny C. Reeves rejected the rewrite on several grounds, including that it would have compelled speech, violated the Constitution, and simply did not make sense.

The ruling applies to all states, not just those that sued, which were plaintiffs from the Commonwealth of Kentucky, Commonwealth of Virginia, state of Indiana, state of Tennessee, and state of West Virginia.

The Biden administration’s DOE sought to add regulations to Title IX that would allow men access to women’s “showers, locker rooms, and sexual education classes, among others” so long as they are consistent with an individual’s “gender identity.”

“But this approach simply does not make sense,” Judge Reeves wrote. Reeves called the new regulations “arbitrary” and said the Department of Education offered “no rational explanation” for the glaring inconsistencies in the rewrite.

The judge explained that expanding the meaning of “on the basis of sex” to include “gender identity” would turn Title IX “on its head.”

Former NCAA athlete Riley Gaines, who has been adamant about keeping men out of women’s sports, called the decision a “huge win for girls and women everywhere!”

‘The First Amendment does not permit the government to chill speech.’

Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti described the ruling as a “resounding victory for the protection of girls’ privacy in locker rooms and showers and for the freedom to speak biologically accurate pronouns.”

Skrmetti is referencing another portion of the ruling, which explained that the new rules would have required Title IX recipients, including teachers, to use “names and pronouns associated with a student’s asserted gender identity.”

The judge said this new “subjective harassment standard” quite clearly “compels” speech and added that even just a stray remark or misuse of language could be considered harassment. He cited the following assertion by the DOE:

“Pronouns can and do convey a powerful message implicating a sensitive topic of public concern.”

Judge Reeves said it was reasonable for the plaintiffs to fear that their failure to use preferred pronouns would be considered harassment under the potential new rules. Additionally, he declared this would have violated the First Amendment.

“Put simply, the First Amendment does not permit the government to chill speech or compel affirmance of a belief with which the speaker disagrees in this manner,” the judge wrote.

The judge also said the Biden administration’s assertion that “preventing a person from participating in a program or accessing a sex-separate facility consistent with their gender identity” subjects them to “harm” is inconsistent with the entirety of Title IX, which is not meant to “encompass the issue of gender identity at all.”

The judge compared the idea to not allowing a man in a women’s fraternity and seemingly implied that if this could be considered to be causing “harm,” then any gender-based organization could not exist.

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