The Supreme Court on June 30 upheld West Virginia and Idaho laws prohibiting boys in girls’ sports.
The 6–3 decision held that the laws didn’t violate Title IX, which bars sex discrimination in education.
“Title IX allows schools to provide separate women’s and men’s sports teams defined by biological sex, and West Virginia has permissibly maintained female sports for biological females consistent with Title IX,” Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote in the majority opinion.
The court’s ruling clarified that when Title IX refers to sex, it “cannot plausibly be interpreted to refer to anything other than biological sex.” It also said that state laws do not violate equal protection rules under the 14th Amendment.
The decision is expected to ripple through other states by providing legal guidance for legislatures that address the issue.
The cases, known as West Virginia v. B.P.J. and Little v. Hecox, arose out of a federal appeals court ruling that the state’s law violated the 14th Amendment. More specifically, they said that the law violated the equal protection clause by classifying individuals based on their sex and “transgender status.”
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit also said West Virginia’s law violated Title IX of the Civil Rights Act, which prohibits sex-based discrimination in federally funded education.
This is a developing story and will be updated.
