SCOTUS Declines Christian College’s Appeal Against Biden Rule On Transgender Housing

The Supreme Court declined to hear a Christian college’s appeal in its lawsuit challenging the Biden administration’s rule on transgender housing.

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.

In his dissent, Eighth Circuit Judge Steven Grasz wrote that the agency’s guidance “skirts the rule of law and undermines our values.”

“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.”

Nineteen red state attorneys general filed an amicus brief backing the college’s lawsuit in March.