The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday upheld a lower court decision blocking a federal rule that would have added protections prohibiting discrimination based on gender identity and sexual orientation to Title IX.
The change was scheduled to go into effect Aug. 1, but in June, Chief Judge Danny Reeves, who serves in U.S. District Court in the Eastern District of Kentucky, issued a ruling blocking that part of the new rules from taking effect.
The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the ruling in July, and on Friday, the Supreme Court agreed.
Kentucky Attorney General Russell Coleman and five other state attorneys general, including those in Indiana, Ohio, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia, had filed suit in April to challenge the new rules.
In a statement issued Friday evening, Coleman framed the legal battle as an effort “to defend equal opportunities for Kentucky’s women and young girls.”
“At its core, this is a fight for common sense itself. And we’ve won at every level of our judicial system,” he said. “The Biden-Harris Administration is threatening to rip away 50 years of Title IX protections. Together with our colleagues in Tennessee and four other states, we are fighting to uphold the promise of Title IX for generations to come.”
