Fifth Circuit Rejects Title IX Overreach in M.K. v. Pearl River

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Court Affirms Limits of Federal Law in School Bullying Case

WASHINGTON— The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit has rejected an effort to expand Title IX to cover student teasing based on perceived sexual orientation, affirming that the statute’s protections do not extend to every instance of peer conflict.

The appeal was brought by a law school clinic and backed by the Biden Administration’s Department of Education in an attempt to push Title IX beyond its statutory boundaries. CIR represented the Pearl River County School District in defending the district court’s ruling.

“This case invited the court to expand Title IX far beyond its text,” said CIR Litigation Director Caleb Kruckenberg. “While we sought an even broader precedent limiting bureaucratic overreach, the result is correct and important. The Fifth Circuit refused to rewrite federal law to fit evolving policy agendas.”

The plaintiffs, parents of a Mississippi middle school student, alleged that the school district violated Title IX by failing to prevent student-on-student bullying. The court found that the alleged facts did not satisfy the legal threshold for a Title IX claim and declined to broaden the statute’s scope to accommodate the theory advanced by the plaintiffs.

“The ruling reinforces what Title IX requires—and what it does not,” said Kruckenberg. “Schools must respond to serious misconduct, but federal courts are not the venue for relitigating ordinary school discipline decisions to satisfy activist agendas.”

Although the decision stops short of addressing constitutional limits under the Spending Clause, it delivers a clear rebuke to federal overreach. The Fifth Circuit left in place the lower court’s ruling, which had broadly limited the power of the federal government to micromanage local schools under Title IX—splitting with every other federal Court of Appeals to have decided this issue.

The Court also rejected arguments injected by the Biden Administration’s Department of Education as amicus curiae, in what the agency hoped would be a major test case between local schools and federal control.

More information about the case and links to the District and Appellate Court rulings are available at CIR-usa.org.

About the Center for Individual Rights
The Center for Individual Rights is a nonprofit public interest law firm dedicated to the defense of individual liberties against unconstitutional government action. CIR’s strategic litigation has produced landmark victories for free speech, equal protection, and due process before the U.S. Supreme Court.