U.S. District Court Chief Judge Louis Guirola, Jr., of the Southern District of Mississippi, questions the student law school advocates during a moot court competition between the state's two law schools, Mississippi College School of Law and the University of Mississippi School of Law in Jackson, Miss., Wednesday, Sept. 27, 2017. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis)
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- Biden’s Department of Health and Human Services tried to broaden Title IX to prohibit discrimination based on “sex stereotypes, sexual orientation, gender identity, and sex characteristics.”
U.S. District Court Judge Louis Guirola has ruled that the Biden-era Department of Health and Human Services exceeded its statutory authority when it interpreted Title IX to prohibit discrimination on the basis of gender identity and then implemented regulations concerning gender identity and “gender affirming care.”
The lawsuit challenging the Biden administration Title IX rule change was filed in the U.S. District Court in the Southern District of Mississippi by a coalition of 15 states which included Mississippi, Tennessee, Alabama, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Virginia and West Virginia.
As previously reported, the Biden Administration’s rewrite of the Title IX final rule broadened the law to prohibit discrimination based on “sex stereotypes, sexual orientation, gender identity, and sex characteristics.” However, the original intent of the 1972 law was to give women an equal playing field in educational attainment, particularly at public schools and institutions of higher learning that receive federal financial aid. Certain presidential administrations supportive of the LGBTQ movement have used Title IX to expand protections and access for people who identify as lesbian, gay or transgender.
The Biden-era Department of Health and Human Services was seeking to include the new Title IX rule as the ACA law passed in 2010 prohibited discrimination “on the ground prohibited by title IX… under any health program or activity, any part of which is receiving Federal financial assistance… or under any program or activity that is administered by an Executive Agency…”
Judge Guirola wrote in his order blocking the rule in July 2024 that a “statute cannot be divorced from the circumstances existing at the time it was passed, and from the evil which Congress sought to correct and prevent.”
Wednesday’s final ruling in the matter drew praise from Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch who has said the Biden-era HHS rule that would have coerced healthcare providers into providing sex-change procedures.
“The Biden administration attempted to import its radical theories on gender identity into ObamaCare, forcing healthcare providers to perform surgeries or prescribe drugs even if it violated their best medical judgment,” said Attorney General Fitch. “I am proud to stand with my colleagues from across the country as we fight to undo the Biden administration’s extremist political agenda.”
The court ordered universal vacatur, applying to all states, not just the plaintiff-states.
Frank Corder
