Twenty Republican-controlled states are suing the Biden administration to halt its LGBTQ rights directives.
Tennessee's attorney general, Herbert Slattery, filed the suit on behalf of all 20 states on August 30, in the US District Court in Knoxville.
Joining Tennessee in the lawsuit are Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, and West Virginia.
The lawsuit argues that directives from the US Department of Education (DOE) and the Equal Opportunity Employment Commission (EEOC) are based on an incorrect interpretation of existing case law.
Specifically, the lawsuit asks the federal court to make several declarations about LGBTQ legal protections:
In June 2020, the US Supreme Court ruled in three separate cases that the federal civil rights law known as Title VII protects LGBTQ people from discrimination in employment. The high court's key finding was that language barring discrimination on the basis of "sex" necessarily protects sexual orientation and gender identity.
The ruling was not extended to directives binding federal departments during the waning days of the Trump administration, but with the new Biden administration, the legal reasoning was applied more broadly.
This June, the DOE said that discrimination based on a student's sexual orientation or gender identity will be treated as a violation of Title IX, the 1972 federal law that protects against sex discrimination in education.
An analysis by DOE lawyers concluded there is "no persuasive or well-founded basis" to treat education differently than employment.
The DOE directive carries the possibility of federal sanctions against schools and colleges that fail to protect LGBTQ students.
Also in June, the EEOC released guidance about what could constitute discrimination against LGBTQ people and advised the public about how to file a complaint.
In the same month, the Department of Justice filed statements of interest in lawsuits that seek to overturn anti-LGBTQ legislation in two states. In West Virginia, a law prohibits Transgender athletes from competing in female sports. Arkansas became the first state to ban gender-confirming treatments or surgery for Transgender youth.
With these directives, the Biden administration positioned itself in opposition to proposed laws in a growing number of states that aim to forbid Transgender girls from participating on female sports teams.
The states suing the administration contend that authority over such policies "properly belongs to Congress, the States, and the people," not to the executive branch.