A federal judge in Kentucky on Thursday struck down President Biden’s effort to expand protections for transgender students and make other changes to the rules governing sex discrimination in schools, ruling that the Education Department had overstepped and violated teachers’ rights by requiring them to use students’ preferred pronouns.
The ruling, which extends nationwide, came as a major blow to the Biden administration in its effort to provide new safeguards for L.G.B.T.Q. and pregnant students, among others, through the law known as Title IX. It arrived just days before those protections were likely to face more scrutiny under a Trump administration that is expected to be hostile to the new rules and could refuse to defend them in court.
In a 15-page opinion, Chief Judge Danny C. Reeves of the Eastern District of Kentucky, wrote that the Education Department could not lawfully expand the definition of Title IX to prohibit discrimination based on gender identity, as it had proposed last year.
“The entire point of Title IX is to prevent discrimination based on sex,” he wrote. “Throwing gender identity into the mix eviscerates the statute and renders it largely meaningless.”
In April, the administration announced a revised version of Title IX, the 1972 law that is part of the Civil Rights Act and prohibits sex discrimination in educational programs that receive federal funding, that applied more explicitly to transgender students. While it stopped short of some major changes — such as requiring schools to accommodate transgender students in single-sex dorms or sports teams — it generally prohibited schools and their staff from rejecting a student’s gender identity in most everyday contexts.
The changes ran into immediate opposition from Republican states, which filed legal challenges, including one brought by Tennessee, Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana, Virginia and West Virginia that led to the decision on Thursday. Through that case and others, the rule had been temporarily blocked in 26 states while state attorneys general and policy groups opposing the changes fought the Education Department over their specifics.
But on Thursday, Judge Reeves definitively ruled against the Biden administration, listing several reasons.
Citing the Supreme Court’s sweeping decision in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo last year, which limited the regulatory power of federal agencies, Judge Reeves wrote that the Biden administration had overstepped when it sought to enforce its new interpretation of Title IX through federal rule-making.
But more significantly, the judge also rejected the revised rule on free-speech grounds, writing that it “offends the First Amendment” by potentially requiring educators to use names and pronouns associated with a student’s chosen gender identity.
“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,” he wrote.
Lastly, he firmly rejected the Education Department’s position that the protections for gay and transgender workers from workplace discrimination established in a landmark 2020 Supreme Court case should also apply in schools.
The decision on Thursday was roundly criticized by student rights activists, who said that in addition to scrapping extended protections for transgender students, the decision threw out other provisions in the Biden administration’s changes. Those included expanding protections to pregnant students and requiring schools to take a harder line in investigating cases of sexual assault.
“Today’s decision displays extraordinary disregard for students who are most vulnerable to discrimination and are in the most need for federal protections under the Title IX rule,” Fatima Goss Graves, the president of the National Women’s Law Center, said in a statement.
A spokesman for the Education Department did not immediately comment on the decision.
Conservative lawmakers and legal groups hailed the decision as a major victory. Transgender issues became a lightning rod during the 2024 election, and President-elect Donald J. Trump has vowed to reverse course on the Biden administration’s rules “on Day 1.”
“This is a colossal win for women and girls across the country,” said Kristen Waggoner, the chief executive of the Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative legal group that joined the states suing the Education Department. “The Biden administration’s radical attempt to redefine sex not only tossed fairness, safety and privacy for female students out the window; it also threatened free speech and parental rights.”
