Hello. This is RJ Deacon, reading the Supreme Court of United States opinion syllabus in West Virginia versus BPJ by her next friend and mother, Heather Jackson, sortiari to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, argued January 13th, 2026, and decided June 30th, 2026. And that's together with 24-38, Little, Governor of Idaho versus Heacks. The question before the court in these cases is whether under Title IX, in the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, schools may maintain women's and girls' sports teams for biological females, i.e., may schools determine eligibility for female sports based on biological sex. In the past six years, 27 states have enacted laws that maintain female sports for biological females. In 2021, West Virginia enacted the Save Women's Sports Act, which prohibits male students from playing on female teams. That's uh West Virginia Code annotated section 18-2-25D, C2, and three. The law specifies that sex is determined by biology, sections 18-2-25D, A4 and B1. The legislature expressly found that by prohibiting biological male participation in female sports is necessary to promote equal athletic opportunities for women and girls. Respondent BPJ, who identifies as female, is a biological male as defined by section 18-2-25D, A4 and B1. BPJ has sought to participate on the girls' cross-country and track and field teams at school. BPJ sued West Virginia and relevant officials for alleged violations of Title IX in the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia granted summary judgment for the state on both claims. On appeal, the Fourth Circuit reversed on the Title IX issue and remanded for further fact-finding on the Equal Protection Clause claim. That's 98 Federal F 4th 542. In 2020, Idaho enacted the Fairness in Women Sports Act, which prohibits male students from participating on female teams. It's Idaho Code annotated section 33-6203. The Idaho law states that sex is determined by biology, and the law declares that separate sex-specific teams furthers efforts to promote sex equality by providing opportunities for female athletes. Section 33-6202-12. It also recognizes the physical differences between biological males and biological females. Respondent Heacks, who identifies as female, is a biological male as defined by Section 336203. Heacocks competed for the women's club soccer team and tried out for the women's Division I track and cross-country teams. Shortly after Idaho enacted the Fairness in Women's Sports Act, Heac sued Idaho and relevant officials alleging a violation of the Equal Protection Clause. The U.S. District Court for the District of Idaho granted a preliminary injunction barring enforcement of the Fairness in Women's Sports Act any Ninth Circuit affirmed. The Supreme Court held the decision below is uh reversed and remanded, and Justice Kavanaugh delivered the opinion in the court. Held. Title IX allows schools to provide separate women's and men's sports teams defined by biological sex, and West Virginia has permissibly maintained female sports for biological females, consistent with Title IX. Title IX provides: no person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving federal financial assistance. That's 20 USC Section 1681A. Two years after Title IX became law in 1972, Congress passed the Javitz Amendment, which directed the then Department of Health, Education and Welfare, HEW, to promptly issue regulations implementing the provisions of Title IX with respect to the prohibition of sex discrimination. Section 844, 88 Statutory 612. The amendment further specified that the regulations shall include, with respect to athletic activities, reasonable provisions considering the nature of particular sports. In 1975, HEW promulgated comprehensive regulations requiring that schools provide equal athletic opportunity for members of both sexes, and authorizing separate teams for members of each sex, where selection for such teams is based upon competitive skill or the activity involved is a contact sport. That's 34 CFR, sections 106.41B and C. The term sex in Title IX, the Javitz Amendment, and the Title IX regulations cannot plausibly be interpreted to refer to anything other than biological sex. The ordinary meaning of the term sex at the time of enactment in the early 1970s was biological sex and not gender identity, particularly in the sports context. CEG Frontiero versus Richardson for 11 US 677. Sex is an immutable characteristic, in addition to the Title IX regulations, allowed separate sports teams precisely because of the inherent physical differences between biological men and biological women. While BPJ agrees that Title IX permits schools to maintain separate female and male teams and to prohibit most biological males from playing on women's and girls' teams, BPJ argues that schools must make an exception to the general rule for biological males who identify as female and have taken puberty blockers or hormones. But the texts of Title IX, the Javits Amendment, and the Title IX regulations do not support that argument and do not speak to that issue in a way that could properly be interpreted to require schools to allow biological males to participate in women's and girls' sports. BPJ argues that if the regulations authorize a school to limit female sports teams to biological females without exception, then the regulations are not reasonable as required by the Javitz Amendment. The court concludes that separate sports teams for biological males and biological females are reasonable, given the inherent physical differences between the sexes. In asserting the reasonableness of the regulations, the court must recognize the distinctiveness of competitive sports and the safety and competitive fairness issues that can arise when females are forced to compete against males. In recent years, 27 states and various sports governing bodies have all drawn the same line. The court rejects BPJ's two other Title IX related arguments. BPJ contends that the school's policy violates Title IX because the policy effectively excludes BPJ from any competitive sports teams at the school. While it is an unhappy occasion whether, whenever a student who wants to play school sports cannot do so, the Title IX regulations guarantee only equal athletic opportunity. BPJ relies on Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 USC section 2000E IIA I, and Bostock versus Clayton County, 590 U.S. 644, as support for interpreting Title IX to require that schools allow biological males on female teams. Title VII and Bostock are not relevant in this very different statutory and factual context of sports. West Virginia and Idaho did not violate the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment by maintaining female sports teams for biological females. The challenged West Virginia and Idaho laws make sex-based classifications in limiting female teams to biological females. Under this court's equal protection precedence, sex-based classifications are permissible only when the classification is substantially related to achieving an important government objective. See United States versus Skermetti, 605 U.S. 495. The states argue, and the court agrees, that the interests of safety and competitive fairness are important interests for purposes of equal protection analysis. And the state's sex-based classification, limiting women's and girls' sports to biological females, is substantially related to those interests. Schools may determine eligibility for women's and girls' sports based on biological sex. Respondents acknowledge that states may exclude most biological males from women's and girls' sports, given the general physical differences between males and females. The Equal Protection Clause does not prohibit the states from applying that same principle to all biological males, including those who identify as female. States are not required to conduct an individual by individual comparison of the physical and athletic capabilities of all biological males in order to satisfy intermediate scrutiny. Under the intermediate scrutiny test, validity of the regulation depends on the relation it bears to the overall problem the government seeks to correct, not on the extent to which it furthers the government's interest in an individual case. That's uh Ward versus Rock Against Racism, 491 US 781. Intermediate scrutiny permits a sex-based classification that, as here, is not invidious, but rather realistically reflects the facts that the sexes are not similarly situated in certain circumstances. That's Michael M. v. Superior Court of Sonoma County, 450 U.S. at 464 plurality opinion. The as-applied argument that the state's sex-based classification is generally permissible, but not as applied to those biological males such as PBPJ and Heacks, who identify as female and have taken puberty blockers or hormones, fails for the same reasons. Particularly in the sports context, determining the effects of puberty blockers and hormones taken by transgender athletes, and then comparing each of those transgender athletes' abilities to those of other individual biological males and individual biological females in the relevant sport would be an almost impossible task for a judge to perform on an equitable basis. The legislatures and the schools are better equipped and under the Constitution are the more appropriate entities to assess the competing medical and scientific considerations and draw appropriate lines. The argument that the challenged laws unconstitutionally discriminate against transgender individuals is unavailing. Under this court's decision in Schermetti, the challenged laws do not classify based on gender identity or transgender status, see 605 U.S. at 517, but instead on the basis of biological sex. The classification at issue readily satisfies rational basis review or intermediate scrutiny. The underlying medical and scientific premise of the equal protection challenge here is that at least some biological males who identify as female and take puberty blockers or hormones do not retain physical advantages over biological females. That premise is the subject of ongoing medical and scientific debate. Even if true, that empirical claim would not alter the equal protection conclusion set forth above. Both the cases below are reversed and remanded. Justice Kavanaugh delivered the opinion of the court, in which Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Thomas Alito, Gorsuch, and Barrett joined. Justice Thomas and Gorsuch filed concurring opinions. Justice Sotomayora filed an opinion concurring in the judgment in part and dissenting in part, in which Justices Kagan and Jackson joined. Justice Jackson filed an opinion concurring in the judgment in part and dissenting in part. Thanks for listening. I think that may be the last one of the session here. So um have a good summer. We may see you later.