SCOTUS declines Christian college's appeal to fight Biden admin's transgender housing directive in advance

The Supreme Court declined to hear a Christian college's appeal to sue the Biden administration over a federal order the college says requires schools to house students based on gender identity rather than biological sex, The Hill reported Tuesday.

"The U.S. Supreme Court left this issue unresolved. The Biden admin must be held accountable, and Alliance Defending Freedom will continue to confront government overreach," Alliance Defending Freedom senior counsel Julie Marie Blake told TheBlaze Tuesday in a statement.

"College of the Ozarks brought this challenge for one reason: The Biden administration was attempting to force them to open their dormitories to members of the opposite sex. 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," Blake also said.

The College of the Ozarks, a Christian school, wanted to make dormitory assignments that correspond with students' biological sex.

Under Biden's executive order that required sexual orientation and gender identity to be considered when interpreting sex-discrimination aspects of federal laws, the school could potentially face a sex-discrimination action if it were to deny the request of a transgender student to be housed in the sex-segregated dormitory of his or her choice.

A federal judge rejected the College of the Ozarks' request to bypass the rule in May 2021, saying that it did not have standing since it had not, as yet, suffered injury. The school appealed, saying it did not have the opportunity to comment on the order before it went into effect, as explained in The Hill.

Today's unsigned order from the Supreme Court will allow the lower court's ruling to stand.

If the Biden administration were to take an enforcement action against the school, it is possible that school could file a new case. One such scenario might unfold if the school denied a biological male student's request to be housed in the women's dorms.

"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. No matter what happens next: College of the Ozarks will continue to follow its beliefs," ADF senior counsel Julie Marie Blake said in a statement acquired by TheBlaze.

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