Federal judge in Texas expands ruling that blocks Biden administration protections of LGBTQ students

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A Texas federal judge this month ruled that the Biden administration had acted unlawfully in interpreting Title IX to prohibit discrimination against LGBTQ students. The ruling preempts future action by the Education Department to prohibit discrimination in educational settings on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity.

Judge Reed O’Connor’s Aug. 5 decision broadened an earlier ruling in June that struck down specific Biden administration rules intended to expand protections to LGBTQ students.

O’Connor, a President George W. Bush appointee, said the Biden administration overstepped its authority and that any new guidelines that expanded anti-discrimination protections to LGBTQ students would be illegal in Texas.

“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,” O’Connor wrote in his Aug. 5 opinion.

“That is not how our democratic system functions,” he wrote, adding that, “the Department lacks authority to redefine sex in a way that conflicts with Title IX.”

The statute at the center of the lawsuit — and the clash it reflects between Texas legislation and federal anti-discrimination protections — is Title IX, a 1972 law that prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex in educational programs and activities.

In 2021, the Biden administration said that Title IX protects LGBTQ students after the Supreme Court ruled in 2020 that Title VII of the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964, which bars employment discrimination on the basis of sex, applies to gay and transgender workers as well.

That same year, the Texas Legislature passed a law that bans transgender children in K-12 public schools from playing on sports teams that are aligned with their gender.

The Texas Attorney General’s office sued the federal government in 2023 for its interpretation of Title IX, arguing that noncompliance with the Biden administration’s rules put Texas schools at risk of losing federal funding.

The Aug. 5 decision came after Texas asked the federal court to clarify the scope of its June ruling and to preclude any implementation of Title IX that extended protections to LGBTQ students.

“This is a major win for protecting Texas and its students from any future attempt by the federal government to impose its unlawful interpretation of Title IX that puts women and girls at risk,” Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton posted on social media. “The Biden Administration has waged war on women’s rights by subverting the Title IX protections they are entitled to in school and in sports.”

The Biden administration issued revised Title IX rules in April that cemented federal protections for LGBTQ students and reversed a number of Trump-era policies that determined how schools should respond to cases of alleged sexual misconduct. O'Connor's August order does not apply to those rules, which have been temporarily blocked in 26 states, including Texas, due to ongoing litigation.

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