The Supreme Court declined to hear a Christian college’s appeal in its lawsuit challenging the Biden administration’s rule on transgender housing that would force female dormitories to house biological males.
Last year, the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals declined to block a U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) directive on transgender housing that the College of the Ozarks argued “requires private religious colleges to place biological males into female dormitories and to assign them as females’ roommates,” finding the college lacked standing to bring the lawsuit. In an unsigned order Tuesday, the Supreme Court declined to hear the college’s appeal.
The College of the Ozarks filed its lawsuit in 2021 after HUD issued its directive in response to President Biden’s executive order redefining sex discrimination to include sexual orientation and gender identity, effectively making it so transgender individuals must be housed within dorms corresponding to their self-declared gender.
CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS – MARCH 12: Students move out of dorm rooms on Harvard Yard on the campus of Harvard University on March 12, 2020 in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Students have been asked to move out of their dorms by March 15 due to the Coronavirus (COVID-19) risk. All classes will be moved online for the rest of the spring semester. (Photo by Maddie Meyer/Getty Images)
In his dissent, Eighth Circuit Judge Steven Grasz wrote that the agency’s guidance “skirts the rule of law and undermines our values.” (RELATED: 19 Red State AGs Back Christian College’s Lawsuit Against Biden Admin Ban On Single-Sex Dorms)
“This is especially true where regulated entities are placed under a sword of Damocles but are denied access to the courts because the sword has not yet fallen,” he wrote.
The college petitioned the Supreme Court to review the decision in February, arguing that the HUD rule “jeopardizes the College’s ability to function, causes emotional harm to students who rely on the College’s housing policies, and dissuades Christian students from attending the College.”
Alliance Defending Freedom Senior Counsel Julie Marie Blake told the Daily Caller News Foundation the Supreme Court left the issue “unresolved.”
“Though the high court chose not to review this case, we are hopeful it will soon take up related cases—both challenges to the broad overreach of the Biden administration and the government’s repeated attempts to remove from law any real distinctions between males and females,” she told the DCNF.
“It is wrong to force schools to open girls’ dorms, bedrooms, and shared showers to males, and ADF will do everything in its power to ensure that religious colleges remain free to protect the young women who attend their institutions,” Marie Blake continued. “No matter what happens next: College of the Ozarks will continue to follow its beliefs.”
Nineteen red state attorneys general filed an amicus brief backing the college’s lawsuit in March.
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