Texas sues Biden administration over expanded protections for LGBTQ+ students in conservative-friendly court

Originally Published: 29 APR 24 12:52 ET

Updated: 29 APR 24 15:46 ET

By Devan Cole, CNN

(CNN) — The state of Texas is suing the Biden administration over recently announced federal protections for LGBTQ+ students, arguing the Department of Education overstepped its authority by expanding the scope of a landmark anti-sex discrimination law.

The lawsuit brought Monday by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton was filed at a courthouse in Amarillo, Texas, in a move that guaranteed its assignment to a conservative judge who has a history of issuing nationwide injunctions against federal policies, with his most notable ruling coming last year in a major abortion case that is now before the Supreme Court.

Paxton is asking US District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk to block the Biden administration from enforcing changes to Title IX, the 1972 federal law that prohibits sex-based discrimination at schools that receive federal aid.

The lawsuit claims that the Biden administration violated federal rulemaking procedures when it went through the process for issuing the new rule.

Among other things, the new federal rule aims to curb discrimination “based on sex stereotypes, sexual orientation, gender identity, and sex characteristics,” according to the department. The rule is set to take effect in August.

Attorneys for Texas wrote in the 30-page complaint that the state would be “harmed” if the new rules are allowed to take effect.

“Texas educational institutions rely on federal funding and will be irreparably harmed if they lose their funding because of their reliance on 50 years of Title IX practice and legal precedent interpreting ‘on the basis of sex’ to mean biological sex, not ‘sexual orientation’ and ‘gender identity,’” the filing states.

A Department of Education spokesperson said in a statement to CNN that it followed “a rigorous process to give complete effect to the Title IX statutory guarantee that no person experiences sex discrimination in federally-funded education.”

“We look forward to working with school communities all across the country to ensure the Title IX guarantee of nondiscrimination in school is every student’s experience,” spokesperson Vanessa Harmoush said in a statement.

Judge-shopping

Earlier this year, the policymaking body of the federal judiciary issued a proposal seeking to curb the very type of so-called judge-shopping that Paxton appears to be doing in filing the lawsuit with Kacsmaryk. As part of the strategy, litigants strategically file lawsuits in courthouses where the cases are certain to be heard by judges perceived to be sympathetic to their arguments.

Under the new policy, such cases seeking nationwide or statewide orders will go into the lottery system used by the entire district. But the chief judge of the federal trial-level district that Amarillo is in has said that the court will not at this time adopt the new proposals.

The case is currently assigned to Kacsmaryk, according to its docket page. An appointee of former President Donald Trump, the judge has previously ruled against Biden administration efforts to strengthen anti-discrimination protections in health care for LGBTQ+ individuals.

The Biden administration has been working to sure-up protections for the LGBTQ+ community in recent weeks, with the Title IX changes coming a week before the Department of Health and Human Services unveiled new anti-discrimination rules in health care that it described as being a “giant step forward for this country toward a more equitable and inclusive health care system.”

This story has been updated with additional details.

CNN’s Tierney Sneed, DJ Judd and Avery Lotz contributed to this report.

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