On August, 12, 2020, in Commonwealth of Pennsylvania v. DeVos, 1:20-cv-01468 (D. Columbia 2020), the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, denied plaintiffs’ Motion for a Preliminary Injunction, or in the alternative for a Stay Pending Judicial Review. The litigation commenced on June 4, 2020, when the seventeen States’ Attorneys General and the District of Columbia filed a Motion for Preliminary Injunction challenging the legality of the U.S. Department of Education’s (“the Department”) Final Rule (“the Rule”) regarding new Title IX obligations. The Rule, which overhauled school districts’ harassment and assault reporting policies and processes, was scheduled to become effective on August 14, 2020. Please refer to our “Self-Audit Checklist and Best Practices for School Districts”, which was posted last month, about the new regulations.
The States’ Attorneys General sought an injunction enjoining implementation of the Rule, arguing that the Department exceeded its statutory authority, that the Rule was an abuse of discretion, and that the Department did not properly observe the Administrative Procedure Act’s notice and comment procedure. Furthermore, the States argued that “because of the Rules’ impracticable effective date, primary, secondary and postsecondary schools across the country will be required to completely overhaul their systems for investigating and adjudicating complaints of sexual harassment in less than three months, in the midst of a global pandemic that has depleted school resources, and with faculty, staff and student stakeholders absent from their campuses due to the pandemic and, in many cases, on leave due to the summer.”
Addressing Plaintiffs’ argument that the Rule’s mandated grievance process in K-12 schools exceeds the Department’s authority and fails to take into account the “unique environment of K-12 schools,” the Court flatly refused to substitute its judgment for that of the Department, and stated it was not its place “to ask whether a regulatory decision is the best one possible or even whether it is better than the alternatives.” Additionally, the Court noted that the Department considered and adopted different rules for K-12 and postsecondary institutions, as elementary and secondary schools are not subject to the live hearing requirement.
Though the Court sympathized with the States’ argument that the COVID-19 pandemic has made schools’ implementation of the Rule difficult and that “a later effective date might have been a preferable policy decision,” it could not conclude that the Department’s effective date was “arbitrary and capricious,” especially since schools have “had almost two years to analyze and understand its requirements.”
To review the Court’s ruling, please download the Opinion here: