Scotus blog;

The Supreme Court on Friday rejected the Biden administration’s request to be allowed to temporarily enforce most of an April 2024 rule implementing Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, which prohibits sex discrimination in education programs that receive federal funding, while its appeals continued.

Friday’s ruling leaves in place for now decisions by federal appeals courts that barred the Biden administration from enforcing any portion of the rule, including three provisions that target discrimination against transgender people in schools. The Biden administration had not asked the Supreme Court to intervene with regard to two of those provisions. […]

The orders came in two separate challenges – one filed in Kentucky by six states and one in Louisiana by four states. Both challenges focused on three provisions of the April 2024 rule that target discrimination against transgender people. The first provision recognizes that Title IX’s ban on sex discrimination includes discrimination based on gender identity. A second provision at issue in the case makes clear that schools violate Title IX when they bar transgender people from using bathrooms and locker rooms consistent with their gender identity. And a third provision defines “hostile-environment harassment” to include harassment based on gender identity, which the states say could require students and teachers to refer to transgender students by the pronouns that correspond to their gender identity.