In Soule v. Connecticut Association of Schools, Inc., (2d Cir., Dec. 15, 2023), the U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals sitting en banc held that four cisgender female track and field athletes (plus two intervenors) have standing to sue a Connecticut high school athletic conference under Title IX for allowing transgender girls to compete in girls' track and field meets. Plaintiffs claimed that this deprived them of equal athletic opportunity. the court summarized its holding as follows:
We do not consider whether Plaintiffs’ Title IX claims have any merit or whether they would be entitled to the relief that they seek as a matter of equity, but rather whether the district court has jurisdiction to hear their claims in the first instance. We conclude that it does.... Plaintiffs have established Article III standing at this stage in the litigation. They have pled a concrete, particularized, and actual injury in fact that is plausibly redressable by monetary damages and an injunction ordering Defendants to alter certain athletic records. Second, the district court was not required to determine whether Defendants had adequate notice of a Title IX violation to be liable for monetary damages before reaching the merits of Plaintiffs’ Title IX claims.
This majority arose from splintered views expressed in 8 separate opinions concurring in part and dissenting in part from each other and spanning 142 pages. NBC News reports on the decision.
