North Texas school districts are challenging Biden Title IX changes. What comes next? | Fort Worth Report (2024)

On a sweltering June afternoon, Tarrant County Judge Tim O’Hare stood in a shaded alcove outside Carroll ISD’s administration building.

Speaking from a wheeled lectern rolled onto the pavement minutes earlier by Christian nonprofit organization Texas Values and surrounded by supporters holding “Save Women’s Sports” signs, O’Hare began his address.

His focus? The Biden administration’s change in Title IX language to redefine “sex” to include “gender identity,” which O’Hare believes would strip girls and women of the legal protections provided under the federal civil rights law passed in 1972.

In its April announcement, the Department of Education said the updated rule would protect students, employees and job applicants from discrimination based on sex stereotypes, sexual orientation, sex characteristics or gender identity.Advocates say the changes would protect transgender students and ensure they can thrive in school.

O’Hare has been outspoken on the issue. As founder of Southlake Families PAC, the county judge was previously active in efforts to elect school board candidates opposed to Carroll ISD’s diversity and inclusion plan.

“This is a blatant overreach from the federal government,” O’Hare posted on X before Carroll ISD’s June 24 board meeting. “The privacy and security of our children, particularly our daughters, are nonnegotiable.”

After his speech, Carroll ISD trustees voted to file an injunction against the Department of Education’s changes. Four days earlier, Keller ISD and its board of trustees adopted a resolution making the same argument.

Now, after a federal judge ruled in favor of Carroll ISD’s injunction July 11, the issue will likely land in the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, law experts told the Fort Worth Report.

“The government will appeal, and Carroll ISD will go on doing what they wanted to do in the first place,” TCU political science professor Matthew Montgomery said. “Now it’s in a federal district court and it’ll get appealed to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals.”

Both school districts have the same message: Transgender students should not be recognized by the gender they identify with by the Texas schools that serve them. In doing so, they said, students’ “privacy” and “security” — specifically that of girls and young women — would be under risk, while they also faced unfair competition in athletics, the Keller ISD resolution stated.

“These changes will force schools to allow biological males to participate in women’s sports, use their restrooms, locker rooms and other sex-specific spaces, and schools that refuse will risk losing federal education funding,” the June 20 resolution reads.

Opposition to Title IX changes grows

Carroll ISD’s and Keller ISD’s involvement highlights the growing resistance to the changes among school districts across the country, said Alisha Carter Harris, a senior consultant for TNG Consulting and the Association of Title IX Administrators.

Carroll ISD was the first school district in the country to file its own lawsuit opposing the changes. Including Texas, 26 states have joined seven separate lawsuits challenging the changes.

The movement aligned with broader efforts seen in states such as Louisiana, where 17 school districts joined a state-led lawsuit against the changes, and Kansas. Now, school districts in Arizona are also considering opposition.

The growing opposition in several states means that transgender students across the country won’t benefit from protections the Biden administration is intending to give them, Carter Harris said. The proposed changes are set to go into effect Aug. 1 in states where there is not a temporary injunction blocking it.

But while opposition spreads across the U.S., no school district has been more vocal about its opposition than Carroll ISD, Title IX experts told the Fort Worth Report. It’s a position the district finds itself in often, as it has made national headlines over the past few years for controversies over book bans and a federal investigation that found the district had violated students’ civil rights by failing to protect them from racist and anti-LGBTQ harassment.

Across Texas, officials such as Attorney General Ken Paxton and Gov. Greg Abbott have also been outspoken against the proposed changes. Before Paxton and the state filed an injunction of its own against the Department of Education on May 14, Abbott sent a letter to Texas’ public university systems and community colleges May 8 and the Texas Education Agency on April 29 directing them to not comply with the revisions.

Carroll ISD celebrates legal ruling; likely headed to appeals court

On May 15, the Carroll ISD school board officially voted to proceed with litigation against the Department of Education for its proposed changes to Title IX. The district retained lawyers with the Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative nonprofit legal organization, and the case was heard July 7.

On July 11, District Judge Reed O’Connor of the Northern District of Texas issued a temporary ruling in favor of the school district. The injunction specifically covers Carroll ISD, but O’Connor requested additional briefings by July 18 to consider extending the ruling to other school districts.

Banning discrimination based on gender identity is “likely unlawful” and “risks irreparable harm to Carroll ISD,” O’Connor wrote.

O’Connor also ruled in the state’s favor in June on a ruling brought against the federal government related to changes the administration made to Title IX in 2021.

“This is a major win for Carroll ISD students, staff and parents,” Carroll ISD board president Cam Bryan said on Facebook after the ruling.

While the district is exempt from making the changes for now, the Department of Education is expected to appeal injunctions across the country, Carter Harris said.

An appeal of this case would first be reviewed by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, which covers Texas, said Montgomery, the TCU professor. If different circuit courts issue conflicting rulings on similar cases — known as a circuit split — the Supreme Court is more likely to step in to resolve the discrepancies and provide a definitive interpretation of the law, Montgomery said.

This process can take months or even years, Montgomery said, during which time the enforcement of the new Title IX regulations will remain uncertain and contested.

Keller ISD opposition continues

If O’Connor decides to extend the ruling to other school districts, nearby Keller ISD will likely hope it’s included. The district, which borders Carroll ISD to the west, hasn’t formally entered litigation, but trustees have been outspoken regarding their opposition.

In comments beneath a June 26 Facebook post on board president Charles Randklev’s page, Randklev and trustee Chris co*ker posted memes underscoring their personal commitments to “protecting female students” and providing “a safe and secure environment for them.”

Their posts followed the district’s unanimous adoption of a June 20 resolution denouncing the recent changes to Title IX, emphasizing the belief that “the unique characteristics of the two human genders — male and female — are distinct, valuable and immutable.”

Copies of the resolution were sent to the Texas State Board of Education, TEA Commissioner Mike Morath and “other relevant stakeholders.”

“There are physical differences between biological males and biological females; these differences do not disappear because an individual wills it to be so,” the resolution stated, while expressing “strong support for the legal challenges” already in motion.

While it’s certain that Keller ISD wants to be exempt from the recent changes, the district has no need to worry, Montgomery said. Until an appeals court or the Supreme Court says otherwise, the district can ignore them — especially after O’Connor’s ruling in Carroll ISD’s favor.

Montgomery said statements and posts, or resolutions like Keller’s, are largely performative and intended to make political statements rather than effect actual policy changes.

“Like most politicians, most things they do can be explained by wanting to get re-elected,” Montgomery said. “And that’s what this seems like to me.”

Trustee Joni Shaw Smith offered a different perspective during the district’s June 20 meeting.

“This resolution is not political posturing,” Smith said. “It is a way of protecting the safety of our biologically female athletes and preserving the integrity of women’s sports and equal opportunities for women and girls.”

Matthew Sgroi is an education reporter for the Fort Worth Report. Contact him at matthew.sgroi@fortworthreport.org or @MatthewSgroi1. At the Fort Worth Report, news decisions are made independently of our board members and financial supporters. Read more about our editorial independence policy here.

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