Louisiana Attorney General-elect Liz Murrill says her office has hired the law firm WilmerHale to help it handle a U.S. Justice Department investigation into Louisiana State Police.
WASHINGTON — A divided U.S. Supreme Court on Friday refused for now to bolster the Biden administration’s ability to extend school discrimination protections to transgender students nationwide, drawing praise from Louisiana's attorney general, who helped spearhead the challenge.
The justices left in force two lower court orders that are temporarily blocking a new Education Department rule in 10 states. The regulation took effect Aug. 1 in some parts of the country.
Four justices — liberals Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson and conservative Neil Gorsuch -- issued a partial dissent, saying they would have let the Education Department enforce parts of the rule in the 10 states. The high court action comes as part of a multifaceted legal fight around the U.S.
over the rule. Critics have focused on a provision that would let students use bathrooms and locker rooms that align with their gender identities, along with a second change that states say would open teachers to punishment for not using students’ preferred pronouns. But the administration didn’t argue for those controversial changes at the Supreme Court.
Instead, U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar had asked the court to allow the rule’s other provisions to be enforced while the legal fight with the states .