Western District of Louisiana Chief Judge Terry Doughty granted a temporary injunction in four states against President Joe Biden’s expansion of Title IX, which protects males in female sports and spaces and forces people to use someone’s preferred pronouns.
“For the reasons set forth herein, this Court finds the Plaintiffs are likely to succeed on the merits that the Defendants’ Final Rule is (1) contrary to law under the Administrative Procedures Act (“APA”), (2) violates the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment, (3) violates the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment, (4) violates the Spending Clause, and (5) is arbitrary and capricious in accordance with Title 5 U.S.C. § 706 (2)(A) of the APA,” wrote Doughty.
The Final Rule is 89 FR 33474 – Nondiscrimination on the Basis of Sex in Education Programs or Activities Receiving Federal Financial Assistance.
The injunction applies to Idaho, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Montana.
They argued:
(1) the Final Rule is contrary to law and exceeds statutory authority
(2) the Final Rule’s conditions violate the spending clause
(3) the Final Rule is an unconstitutional exercise of legislative power
(4) the Final Rule is arbitrary and capricious
The Department of Education conflated “sex” and “gender identity,” expanding protections to males who want to play female sports and be in female spaces.
Doughty pointed out the obvious: “Thus, Title IX was written and intended to protect biological women from discrimination. Such purpose makes it difficult to sincerely argue that, at the time of enactment, ‘discrimination on the basis of sex’ included gender identity, sex stereotypes, sexual orientation, or sex characteristics. Enacting the changes in the Final Rule would subvert the original purpose of Title IX: protecting biological females from discrimination.”
When the government enacted Title IX, “sex discrimination” obviously “included only discrimination against biological males and females.”
(I urge everyone to stop saying biological male or female. It’s female. There is only one female. There is only one male.)
Doughty tore apart the Department of Education for not considering the impacts it would have on females, leading to more discrimination they faced before Title IX.
I mean, that’s why we have Title IX:
These cisgender females must use the bathroom, undress, and shower in the presence of persons who may identify as females but still have male biological parts. Many of these students are minors. The DOE made no attempt to determine the effect on students having students who are biologically the opposite sex in their locker rooms and bathrooms. Instead, the DOE declared in the Final Rule, with no explanation, that transgender students do not pose a safety risk for cisgender students.
This line stuck out: “Many of these students are minors.”
Doughty agreed the plaintiffs would succeed on its claim the Final Rule violates the First Amendment, which includes withholding funding if the school limits a person’s ability to perform on the team he wants.
But the department would also punish a school if people didn’t use preferred pronouns:
Plaintiffs further urge that this standard chills and punishes protected speech under the First Amendment because it would compel staff and students to use whatever pronouns a person demands, even when those are contrary to grammar rules, reality, or political ideologies, and it further prohibits staff and students from expressing their own views on certain topics. Essentially, the harassment standard allows for one political ideology to dominate the educational landscape while either silencing the other or calling the other “harassment” under these standards.Thus, Plaintiffs argue that the Final Rule conflicts with the “fixed star in our constitutional constellation” that the government cannot “prescribe what shall be orthodox” or “force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein,” W. Virginia State Bd. of Educ. v. Barnette, 319 U.S. 624, 642 (1943), and “may not prohibit the expression of an idea simply because society finds the idea itself offensive or disagreeable,” Texas v. Johnson, 491 U.S. 397, 414 (1989).
Doughty concluded the standard “is obviously contrary to Title IX.” It’s crazy:
After that declaration is made, these schools are prohibited from questioning the sincerity of the new gender identity. The school cannot require any documentation to prove the sincerity of the gender change, i.e., doctor diagnosis. The school also must use the pronouns required by the student that changes gender. Allowing a biological male student to change to a female by simply declaring it, requiring no documentation of the change, and allowing the student to shower with cisgender females in the girls’ locker room goes beyond the scope of arbitrary and capricious.
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