Biden’s Title IX protections for LGBTQ students struck down by Texas court | NBCNews

This blog originally appeared at NBC NEWS.

A judge ruled on a guidance indicating that schools could lose federal funding if they discriminate against students based on gender identity or sexual orientation.

A federal judge in Texas on Tuesday determined that the Biden administration improperly attempted to reinterpret federal law prohibiting sex discrimination in schools by extending it to include LGBTQ students.

U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor in Fort Worth, Texas, ruled in favor of a lawsuit filed by the state’s Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton. He declared that legal guidance issued by the U.S. Department of Education three years ago was invalid, asserting that the agency lacked the authority to implement it and that it could not be enforced in Texas.

The non-binding guidance indicated that schools could be denied federal funding if they discriminated against students based on gender identity or sexual orientation, such as by requiring students to use facilities that correspond to their sex assigned at birth.

A federal judge in Tennessee had already blocked the Education Department from enforcing this guidance in 20 Republican-led states that had also sued to overturn it in 2022. The Biden administration is currently appealing that decision.

The guidance was issued in response to a landmark 2020 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that extended federal workplace sex discrimination protections to LGBTQ employees. The Education Department argued that the same logic applied under Title IX, as both laws use similar language.

However, O’Connor, in a 112-page ruling, stated that the Education Department did not have the authority to apply that Supreme Court ruling to Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972.

“To allow Defendants’ unlawful action to stand would be to functionally rewrite Title IX in a way that shockingly transforms American education and usurps a major question from Congress,” wrote O’Connor, an appointee of Republican former President George W. Bush.

The Department of Education and the U.S. Department of Justice did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

In a statement, Paxton said the ruling thwarts Democratic President Joe Biden’s “effort to weaponize Title IX for his extremist agenda.”

“Threatening to withhold education funding by forcing states to accept ‘transgender’ policies that put women in danger was plainly illegal,” Paxton stated.

In April, the Education Department adopted formal, binding regulations applying Title IX to LGBTQ students. Tuesday’s decision does not impact those rules, which Texas and other states are currently challenging in court. However, it does indicate that these regulations could be susceptible to future legal challenges.