CHARLESTON W.Va. (WVDN) — West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey, a co-leader of a six-state coalition, was victorious Thursday in challenging the federal Department of Education’s overhaul of Title IX of the Educational Amendments Act, which they believe would harm West Virginia students, families and schools.
The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky granted summary judgment in favor of the coalition—the court denied the Education Department’s cross-motion for summary judgment.
“This is a victory not only for the rule of law, but also for common sense and the safety of every student,” Attorney General Morrisey said. “The Biden administration’s Title IX revisions would have ended sex-based protections for biological women in all aspects of education, and this would have marked a retreat from the progress women have made.”
If DOE’s unauthorized rewrite of Title IX would have been allowed to stand, West Virginia schools could have been compelled to allow males self-identifying as female—in every grade from preschool through college—to use girls’ and women’s bathrooms and locker rooms, play on girls’ and women’s sports teams, and access other female-only activities and spaces or risk losing billions in federal funding.
Indiana, Ohio and Virginia joined the West Virginia-, Kentucky-, and Tennessee-led lawsuit. The coalition filed the lawsuit in April 2024.
For 50 years, Title IX has helped equalize women’s access to educational facilities and programs by barring discrimination based on sex by federally funded schools. At the same time, because of the enduring physical differences between men and women, Title IX has always allowed the sex-segregated spaces—like bathrooms and locker rooms—that are ubiquitous across the nation.
Read a copy of the order here.
