Attorneys for Carroll Independent School District got their first hearing in a Fort Worth federal court over a lawsuit against the Biden administration’s Title IX rewrite that would allow boys in female spaces.
In April, the Biden administration released a nearly 1,500-page rewrite of Title IX—which is the federal civil rights law designed to prohibit sex-based discrimination in education.
The new version would include “gender identity” as a protected class. It would also force schools to permit biological males to use female spaces. If a school refuses to comply, federal funding would be withheld.
In May, Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys filed a lawsuit on behalf of Carroll ISD against the administration, claiming that the rule will injure the school district and “impose immediate and long-lasting harm on Carroll ISD as well as its staff and students and their parents.”
On Monday, ADF lawyers representing the district appeared in court to argue that the U.S. Department of Education would be improperly redefining biological sex to include gender identity if the rule takes effect.
However, Pardis Gheibi, the attorney for the DOE claimed that the new rule redefines how school districts handle certain students and does not broaden the definition of a student’s sex.
Gheibi specifically pointed to the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Bostock v. Clayton County, Georgia, where the court sided with county employee, Gerald Bostock, who was fired for being gay. Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote the majority opinion saying the county violated Title VII for sex discrimination because they punished him for “conduct ‘unbecoming’ a county employee shortly after he began participating in a gay recreational softball league.”
Although Gheibi recognized that the ruling dealt with Title VII, she claimed the same reasoning could be attributed to gender-confused students.
Carroll ISD lawyers countered—explaining that the new rule would undo the law’s protections for female students.
ADF attorney Mathew Hoffman shared an example of a female student who had survived a violent rape and felt uncomfortable changing in front of a gender-confused boy. He explained the new rule would create a hostile situation and environment for the female student.
Tarrant County Judge Tim O’Hare attended the hearing and posted to X:
This morning I was in Judge [Reed] O’Connor’s courtroom for an injunction hearing in Carroll ISD vs. U.S. Department of Education. It was stunning to listen to a lawyer ‘representing the United States’ (paid for by our taxes) arguing to reinterpret Title IX based on the sex a person identifies as, not what they are. This law was passed to protect and provide opportunities for females. The Biden Administration and Washington Democrats in general are running a complete clown show. They are embarrassing our country across the globe by embracing this ridiculous, radical ideology.
A ruling from Judge O’Connor is expected in the coming weeks.
