Texas judges block Biden protections for LGBTQ students

Two conservative federal judges in Texas have blocked President Joe Biden’s administration from enforcing new anti-discrimination protections for LGBTQ students, preventing the rule from taking effect in the Republican-led state and a school district represented by a Christian legal rights group.

Thursday’s rulings by U.S. District Judges Matthew Kacsmaryk in Amarillo and Reed O’Connor in Fort Worth followed decisions by three other Republican-appointed judges in Kansas, Kentucky and Louisiana blocking the regulation in 14 other states.

The U.S. Department of Education’s rule interprets the ban on discrimination “on the basis of sex” contained in Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 as also barring discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.

The Education Department cited a 2020 U.S. Supreme Court decision, Bostock v. Clayton County, holding that a ban against sex discrimination in the workplace contained in a different law, Title VII, covered gay and transgender workers.

Courts have often relied on interpretations of Title VII when analyzing Title IX, as both laws bar discrimination on the basis of sex.

But Kacsmaryk, an appointee of Republican former President Donald Trump, in siding with Republican Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and two professors at the University of Texas at Austin, concluded that Title VII does not govern Title IX.

He said a strict reading of Title IX’s text makes clear its overarching goal was to prevent discrimination against women in public and higher education, yet the rule would force Texas schools to no longer separate bathrooms, locker rooms and other facilities based on biological sex.

“Title IX protects women in spaces that were historically reserved to men,”