The Biden administration had four full years to reverse its predecessor's rulemaking that tied federal education funding to giving religious student groups the same "rights, benefits, or privileges" as secular student groups – one of which waited until President Trump's last day in office to sue on the grounds that the "Free Inquiry" regulation authorized discrimination.
Unable to finish its own countervailing rulemaking as the Secular Student Alliance's patience grew thin in the long-paused case, and wary of kneecapping its ability to attach federal strings to funding, the Democratic Joe Biden's Education Department turned on its presumptive ally last spring, arguing the Trump administration's rule-making was valid.
U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson gave the incoming administration a housewarming gift and the outgoing administration a bon-voyage present Wednesday, throwing out SSA's lawsuit and upholding the department's broad power to determine eligibility for funding.
The President Obama nominee also gave SSA a grammar lesson, noting a federal law it invoked against the rule did not include the mandate word "shall" but was rather a "sense of Congress" that no student "should" face discrimination "on the basis of participation in protected speech or protected association," which SSA claimed the rule impinged.
That was one of the final questions the parties addressed, according to a Dec. 31 "minute order" by Jackson that ordered briefing on whether the sense of Congress was a "limitation" on the department's rule-making power in Title 20 of the U.S. Code, which governs education.
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Unable to finish its own countervailing rulemaking as the Secular Student Alliance's patience grew thin in the long-paused case, and wary of kneecapping its ability to attach federal strings to funding, the Democratic Joe Biden's Education Department turned on its presumptive ally last spring, arguing the Trump administration's rule-making was valid.
U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson gave the incoming administration a housewarming gift and the outgoing administration a bon-voyage present Wednesday, throwing out SSA's lawsuit and upholding the department's broad power to determine eligibility for funding.
The President Obama nominee also gave SSA a grammar lesson, noting a federal law it invoked against the rule did not include the mandate word "shall" but was rather a "sense of Congress" that no student "should" face discrimination "on the basis of participation in protected speech or protected association," which SSA claimed the rule impinged.
That was one of the final questions the parties addressed, according to a Dec. 31 "minute order" by Jackson that ordered briefing on whether the sense of Congress was a "limitation" on the department's rule-making power in Title 20 of the U.S. Code, which governs education.
More
Judge upholds Trump protections for religious student groups that Biden waited too long to reverse
Biden's Department of Education delayed Secular Student Alliance lawsuit for three years as it developed regulation to erase Trump's, then threw presumptive ally under the bus by defending lawfulness of Trump's regulation.
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