Press Release: Kentucky Court Blocks Biden Title IX Rule Nationwide
National Association of Scholars press release, 10 January 2025
New York, NY; January 10, 2025—In a sweeping opinion that applies throughout the country, a federal court in Kentucky has stopped the new, bad Biden Title IX Rule from taking effect anywhere, finding it both unlawful and unconstitutional.
“The courts are doing their job and stopping the illegal administrative overreach of the Biden Education Department,” says Teresa R. Manning, Director of Policy, National Association of Scholars. “Biden’s bad Title IX rule was an egregious example of this lawlessness. Praise for Judge Danny C. Reeves of Kentucky for his solid and correct ruling.”
The Court’s order of January 9, 2025, agrees with ten prior judicial opinions from last year which also found the rule likely illegal. The United States Supreme Court affirmed those injunctions in a case before it last August. This decision protects due process from corruption and executive overreach. The Biden Title IX rule would have gutted due process, allowing for the “single investigator model” to be perpetrated by Title IX administrators on campuses—leading to wrongful accusations and trampled rights, akin to the previous Catherine Lhamon era flouting of civil rights law. However, justice has prevailed.
“Every court to review the Biden Rule has found it contrary to law,” said Teresa R. Manning, Director of Policy at the National Association of Scholars. “The Biden regulation redefined the basic term ‘sex’ itself to include ‘gender identity,’ such that males claiming to be females could use women’s bathrooms and locker rooms; they could also join women’s teams,” explained Manning. She continued, “additionally, the rule redefined ‘sexual harassment’ discrimination to include subjective offense, the meaning of which was anybody’s guess. A wink? Holding open a door? Using the wrong pronoun? It was going to be a blank check for gender ideologues.”
“Thankfully, the federal court in Kentucky essentially denounced the Biden Education Department for this obvious agency overreach,” Manning remarked.
The Court stated:
Put simply, there is nothing in the text or statutory design of Title IX to suggest that discrimination ‘on the basis of sex’ means anything other than it has since Title IX’s inception—that [schools]... may not treat a person worse than another similarly situated individual on the basis of the person’s sex, i.e., male or female.
The Court added:
“[E]xpanding the meaning of ‘on the basis of sex’ to include ‘gender identity’ turns Title IX on its head,” since men in women’s spaces violates women’s rights—to safety, to privacy and to their own sports under Title IX.
The Kentucky Court went on to find the rule also violated the First Amendment because it would compel school staff to use words or pronouns demanded by gender activists. It emphasized that the new definition of discrimination, including subjective offense, would,
requires [schools], including teachers, to use names and pronouns associated with a student’s asserted gender identity. This new subjective harassment standard compels this result ... [but] the First Amendment does not permit the government to chill speech or to compel affirmance of a belief with which the speaker disagrees ...
This outcome didn't drop out of a clear blue sky. The effort of our members and colleagues kept this issue on the radar of education reformers nationwide, and most importantly, top of mind for the states attorneys general.
Manning concluded, “Because of this decision, students and higher education alike are protected from blatant federal overreach and bad legal precedent by the Biden administration, ensuring due process and constitutional rights are protected for years to come.”
NAS is a network of scholars and citizens united by a commitment to academic freedom, disinterested scholarship, and excellence in American higher education. Membership in NAS is open to all who share a commitment to these broad principles. NAS publishes a journal and has state and regional affiliates. Visit NAS at www.nas.org.
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If you would like more information about this issue, please email Teresa R. Manning at manning@nas.org.
Photo by de Art on Adobe Stock
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