A federal judge largely dismissed Minnesota’s lawsuit challenging the Trump administration’s interpretation of Title IX on Monday, ruling that most of the state’s claims fell short of the legal standards required to bring the challenge in federal court.
U.S. District Chief Judge Eric Tostrud of the District of Minnesota found that the administration’s findings and related enforcement letters sent to Minnesota did not constitute final agency action under the Administrative Procedure Act, one of the primary legal hooks the state had sought to use in challenging the federal position.
The state had argued that the administration violated the Administrative Procedure Act and the Tenth Amendment when it determined that state policies allowing transgender students to compete on sports teams and use facilities consistent with their gender identity were in violation of federal law. Letters from the federal government threatened to withhold education funding, and the state contended this rose to the level of final agency action challengeable under the Administrative Procedure Act.
Tostrud rejected that argument. He wrote that the administration’s findings and the letters imposing consequences on the state for its policies did not constitute final agency action and imposed no legal injury on Minnesota sufficient to create a cognizable claim under the Administrative Procedure Act.
The Supreme Court’s role in the analysis
In his ruling, Tostrud referenced a June Supreme Court decision that upheld state bans on male athletes competing in female sports categories. The Supreme Court in that case did not resolve the question of whether individual states or school districts may permissively allow such participation, but the judge said the court’s holding that the word sex in Title IX refers to biological sex provides at least some support for the Trump administration’s Title IX reading.
That framing is significant. The judge did not say the administration’s interpretation is definitively correct, but he acknowledged that the high court’s ruling offers a legal foundation for the federal position that differs from the one Minnesota was relying on when it filed suit.
What remains of Minnesota’s case
Tostrud’s ruling was not a complete dismissal. Part of the lawsuit was allowed to proceed. The orders at issue also outlined specific penalties for federally funded entities that allow male athletes to compete in women’s sports categories, and the administration used the threat of withholding federal education funding as a lever to press school districts to end policies that allow students to participate consistent with their gender identity.
The portion of the case that survived the dismissal relates to aspects of the enforcement mechanism rather than the core legal interpretation of Title IX, and that part of the challenge will continue in the District of Minnesota.
The legal and policy context
Title IX, enacted in 1972, prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex in education programs receiving federal financial assistance. The question of how sex is defined in that context for purposes of transgender athletes and facility access has generated significant legal and policy disputes at the federal and state levels in recent years.
The Trump administration has taken the position that sex in Title IX refers exclusively to biological sex, a reading that would exclude policies allowing transgender students to participate in sports or use facilities consistent with their gender identity. The state and others have adopted policies that take a different approach, treating gender identity as the relevant classification for those purposes.
The state can appeal the portions of the case that were dismissed. How the case develops from this point will depend on how Minnesota proceeds and what rulings emerge from the surviving portion of the lawsuit.
