District Judge Reed O’Connor of the Northern District of Texas has issued a preliminary injunction against the U.S. Department of Education’s changes to Title IX in a lawsuit filed by Carroll Independent School District in Southlake, Texas.
Carroll ISD, represented by Alliance Defending Freedom, filed the lawsuit in May asking for the injunction to delay the required Aug. 1 deadline for implementation of new guidelines that extend Title IX protections to transgender students. Carroll ISD claimed implementing the new guidelines in the required time frame would be cost-prohibitive and infeasible.
Reed O’Connor
Judge O’Connor, who was named to the federal bench in 2007 by President George W. Bush, agreed and issued the preliminary injunction. O’Connor is considered a favorite for conservative lawyers because he reliably rules against Democratic policies and for Republican policies.
O’Connor, a member of the Federalist Society, has accumulated a long list of rulings that favor evangelical conservatives on social issues, including previously rulings on the Affordable Care Act and transgender students.
Carroll ISD, located northeast of Fort Worth, lies in an affluent and politically conservative area known as Ground Zero for book bans and conservative efforts to shape public education to their liking.
This injunction does not address the material changes to Title IX or the merits of challenging those changes; however, there are multiple lawsuits working their way through the judiciary that challenge the material changes on a variety of fronts. As those lawsuits work their way through the legal system, district courts are, by and large, prohibiting the new rules from taking effect until the larger questions underlying the redefinition of “sex” as “gender identity” can be addressed.
Ultimately, these questions will likely be resolved by the U.S. Supreme Court.
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