State of Tennessee v. Cardona
Description: The Biden administration’s unlawful attempt to rewrite Title IX threatens teachers and students’ privacy, safety, fairness, and free speech.
High-school female athlete, Christian teachers ask 6th Circuit to uphold privacy, free speech, fairness
WHO: Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys
WHAT: Available for media interviews following oral argument in State of Tennessee v. Cardona
WHEN: Immediately following the hearing, which begins at 9 a.m. EDT, Wednesday, Oct. 30
WHERE: U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit, Potter Stewart U.S. Courthouse, 8th Floor West Courtroom 805, 100 E. Fifth St., Cincinnati; or view the livestream. To schedule an interview, contact ADF Media Relations Specialist Hattie Troutman at (771) 200-7630.
CINCINNATI – Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys will be available for media interviews Wednesday following oral arguments in State of Tennessee v. Cardona at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit. ADF attorneys represent a West Virginia high-school female athlete and Christian Educators Association International in a lawsuit challenging the Biden-Harris administration’s unlawful attempt to change the meaning of “sex discrimination” in Title IX, a federal law designed to create equal opportunities for women in education and athletics, to include “gender identity.”
“The Biden-Harris administration’s radical attempt to redefine sex turns back the clock on equal opportunity for women, undermines fairness, and threatens student safety, privacy, and free speech,” said ADF Senior Counsel Jake Warner, who will be arguing before the court. “The U.S. Supreme Court rightly upheld preliminary decisions halting the administration’s illegal efforts to rewrite Title IX. Our female student-athlete client has already suffered the humiliation and indignity of being harassed by a male student in the locker room and on her sports team. We are urging the 6th Circuit to uphold safety and fairness by keeping the administration’s flawed re-write of Title IX on ice while this case proceeds.”
On April 29, the Biden-Harris administration announced it would redefine “sex” in Title IX rules to include “gender identity,” requiring schools to disregard longstanding sex-based protections, which respect the biological differences between men and women, to accommodate “an individual’s sense of their gender.” Since then, ADF attorneys have joined several states, women’s groups, athletic associations, and school boards in achieving five injunctions that halt enforcement of the rule change in multiple jurisdictions that span the country as the lawsuits proceed.
In August, the U.S. Supreme Court denied the administration’s request to partially reinstate the rule change in this case and another case, U.S. Department of Education v. State of Louisiana. The Supreme Court’s decision upheld two federal appeals court rulings, including one by the 6th Circuit, that halted the administration’s unlawful rules in the states of Tennessee, Indiana, Ohio, West Virginia, Kentucky, and Virginia, as well as Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana, and Idaho. Attorneys are yet again asking the 6th Circuit to keep those injunctions in place while this case proceeds.
The athlete client that ADF represents in the case is a 15-year-old girl in West Virginia who was forced to compete against a male athlete on her middle school track-and-field team. The male displaced her several times, even taking away her spot to compete in a conference championship. The male athlete was also given access to the girls’ locker room, and the ADF client had to endure vulgar, sexual comments that the athlete directed at her. The male athlete has finished ahead of nearly 300 female competitors in three years of competition on the girls’ team.
ADF attorneys also note that Tennessee and Kentucky have laws that protect the privacy and free speech of teachers who are members of Christian Educators Association International and teach in schools covered by Title IX. But those state laws and the protection they provide to ADF clients and people like them is threatened by the administration’s new Title IX rules.
Alliance Defending Freedom is an alliance-building, non-profit legal organization committed to protecting religious freedom, free speech, parental rights, and the sanctity of life.
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ABOUT Jake Warner
Jake Warner serves as senior counsel with Alliance Defending Freedom, where he is a key member of the Center for Conscience Initiatives. Since joining ADF in 2017, Warner has focused on protecting the conscience rights of individuals being unjustly forced to compromise their beliefs under threat of heavy fines and punishment. His practice also includes defending the freedom of Christians to exercise their faith in the marketplace without government interference. Prior to joining ADF, Warner served as a judicial law clerk to Senior United States District Judge Malcolm J. Howard in the Eastern District of North Carolina. Before his clerkship, Warner also engaged in private practice with the firm of Perry, Perry & Perry, in Kinston, North Carolina, where he primarily represented criminal defendants in both federal and state courts. Warner earned his J.D. at the Regent University School of Law, graduating magna cum laude in 2011. He obtained his B.A. in history and political science from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2006. Warner is admitted to practice in Arizona, North Carolina, and the U.S. Supreme Court, as well as several federal district and appellate courts.
ABOUT Jonathan Scruggs
Jonathan Scruggs serves as senior counsel and vice president of litigation strategy and the Center for Conscience Initiatives with Alliance Defending Freedom. In this role, he identifies new litigation opportunities and develops new strategies for protecting free speech and religious liberty in collaboration with the chief legal counsel and litigation team directors. As the leader for the Center for Conscience Initiatives, Scruggs oversees the litigation team defending the rights of professionals and business owners to live out their faith as well as the litigation efforts to protect equal opportunities for women in athletics. Since joining ADF in 2006, Scruggs has worked on and prevailed in a variety of cases that protect the right of people to freely express their faith in their business, at school, and in the public square. He earned his J.D. at Harvard Law School and is admitted to practice in the states of Arizona and Tennessee. Scruggs is also admitted to the U.S. Supreme Court and multiple federal district and appellate courts.
ABOUT Rachel Rouleau
Rachel Rouleau serves as legal counsel for Alliance Defending Freedom, where she is a member of the Center for Conscience Initiatives. Rouleau joined the Conscience Team in 2020, where she focuses on protecting the conscience rights of individuals being unjustly forced to compromise their beliefs under threat of heavy fines and punishment. Prior to that, she was a First Year Lawyer Fellow in ADF’s new fellowship program. Rouleau earned her J.D. from William and Mary Law School in 2019. She obtained her B.A. in political science from the University of Florida in 2015. She is a member of the Massachusetts bar.