A federal judge in Tennessee Friday granted a temporary injunction on behalf of the state of Tennessee, which was caught in a legal entanglement with President Joe Biden’s administration on the subject of transgender sports.
“As it currently stands, plaintiffs must choose between the threat of legal consequences – enforcement action, civil penalties, and the withholding of federal funding – or altering their state laws to ensure compliance with the guidance and avoid such adverse action,” Judge Charles Atchley, a 2020 appointee of former President Donald Trump, said in granting Tennessee’s motion for an injunction against the federal government.
Atchley is a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee.
“At a minimum, [the Biden administration’s] guidance appears to deem conduct required by plaintiffs’ state laws to be unlawful sex discrimination under federal law,” Atchley said in his decision.
Atchley did not rule on whether such bans, which the Biden administration claims violate Title IX prohibiting discrimination based on sex and sexual orientation in athletics, actually did violate the federal law.
Instead, he said that threatening to pull funding left the states with an “untenable choice.”
“Defendant has vowed to enforce these statues consistent with the challenged guidance, and Defendants do not dispute that an enforcement action puts them at risk of losing substantial federal funding,” he said.
“As other courts have recognized, being left with such an untenable choice inflicts substantial pressure on Plaintiffs to change their state laws – an intrusion sufficient enough to constitute an injury for standing purposes,” Atchley said.
After a wave of bills nationwide, including Tennessee’s HB 1233, which blocked transgender athletes from participating in sports that do not align with their sex at birth, the Biden administration declared that those bills violated Title IX, which prohibits discrimination based on sex and sexual orientation in athletics.
In response, 20 attorneys general, led by Tennessee Attorney General Herbert Slatery III, filed their lawsuit against the Biden administration.
“The District Court rightly recognized the federal government put Tennessee and other states in an impossible situation: choose between the threat of legal consequences including the withholding of federal funding – or altering our state laws to comply,” Slater said in a release following the decision. “Keep in mind these new, transformative rules were made without you – without your elected leaders in Congress having a say, which is what the law requires. “We are thankful the Court put a stop to it, maintained the status quo as the lawsuit proceeds, and reminded the federal government it cannot direct its agencies to rewrite the law.”
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Pete D’Abrosca is a reporter at The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network. Email tips to [email protected].
