A Federal Court Just Upheld Title IX’s Sex-Based Discrimination Ban Exemption for Religious Colleges

Title IX of the federal code, also known as the Education Amendments of 1972, is civil rights legislation that prohibits sex-based discrimination in any school or education program that receives federal money from taxpayers.

But Congress included a provision to exempt educational institutions controlled by religious organizations from this prohibition. The ban on sex-based discrimination could be inconsistent with tenets of the faith.

The Religious Exemption Accountability Project, a coalition of former and current homosexual students who claim that religious schools discriminated against them, sued the U.S. Department of Education over the religious exemption.

As Reuters reported, a federal court ruled against the coalition and upheld exemptions for religious colleges. An excerpt:

The group argued that the exemption violated the students’ equal protection rights under the U.S. Constitution by treating them differently than other students due to their sex, sexual orientation and gender identity.
…
But [Judge Ann] Aiken said that while the plaintiffs’ complaint was replete with allegations of unequal treatments of LGBTQ+ students by religious schools such as Bob Jones University and Baylor University, they failed to show any discriminatory motivation by Congress in enacting the exemption.

The court dismissed the coalition’s case and denied the motion for a preliminary injunction.

The coalition also claimed that the religious exemption for schools amounted to an establishment of religion.

“The text of RFRA [Religious Freedom Restoration Act] is clear that government granting exemptions does not constitute a violation, unless impermissible under Establishment Clause principles,” the judge wrote (PDF). “But, as discussed above, Plaintiffs cannot plausibly allege that the religious exemption is impermissible under the Establishment Clause.”

The Biden administration defended the religious exemption but agreed that Title IX “bars discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity.” This has been a political sticking point.

Federal law does not bar discrimination based on these factors. The Obama and Biden administrations sought to redefine “sex” in civil rights law to include “gender identity” and sexual orientation. Congress is charged with writing or rewriting federal law and has not done so.

The Biden administration typically cites the Supreme Court’s ruling in Bostock v. Clayton County (2020), which bars employment discrimination against “transgender” people, to support its executive actions redefining “sex.” A so-called conservative court handed down this decision.

Photo credit: Ken Lund (Creative Commons) – Some rights reserved

Do you like this post? Sign up for more!