You have /5 articles left.
Sign up for a free account or log in.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit has upheld a district court’s ruling against a suit by the College of the Ozarks because the college “lacked standing to establish a case or controversy.”
The college sought an injunction to preserve its right to require students to abide by the belief that students’ biological sex is “God-given, objective gender, whether or not it differs from their internal sense of ‘gender identity.’” The college also says that “sexual relations are for the purpose of the procreation of human life and the uniting and strengthening of the marital bond in self-giving love, purposes that are to be achieved solely through heterosexual relationships in marriage.” The college also requires that male and female students on campus not mix in dormitories.
The injunction would have been against the Department of Housing and Urban Development, which issued a memorandum on the enforcement of various laws.
“This theory of injury fails because it is based on a misunderstanding of the memorandum,” the court found. “The memorandum does not impose any restrictions on, or create any penalties against, entities subject to the Fair Housing Act.”
Further, the court said, “The college’s alleged injury also lacks imminence because it is speculative that HUD will file a charge of discrimination against the college in the first place. As explained in the government’s brief, the agency has never filed such a charge against a college for sex discrimination based on a housing policy that is specifically exempted from the prohibition on sex discrimination in education under Title IX of the Civil Rights Act.”