Palmetto State News

Attorney General Alan Wilson announced that a court ruling in Kansas will temporarily block the Biden administration’s new Title IX Rule from being implemented at some South Carolina schools, colleges, and universities. The Biden administration has reinterpreted Title IX’s prohibitions on sex discrimination to include “gender identity.”

Although South Carolina is not a party to this suit, the ruling does affect some South Carolina schools. A list of schools that may be affected by the order can be found here.

The schools are preliminarily enjoined from “implementing, enacting, enforcing, or taking any action to enforce” the Title IX Rule until further notice. The Biden administration has asked a court to pause portions of that ruling and let the Title IX Rule go into effect while the case goes up on appeal, but no further decision has been made yet on that request.

South Carolina is awaiting a ruling in its own case against proposed changes to Title IX.

The new rule, which is slated to take effect August 1, 2024, requires any school receiving federal funding to accommodate students’ and teachers’ “gender identity.” This means biological boys and men who identify as female will be allowed to use girls’ bathrooms and locker rooms. Students and teachers will also be required to use others’ “preferred pronouns."

Attorney General Wilson filed a separate lawsuit in April on this same rule, arguing that the Biden administration does not have the authority to override the text of Title IX that Congress passed in 1972.

"We will provide an update on the Title IX Rule case involving South Carolina when a decision is made by that court."