SCOTUS punts on Christian college's challenge to Biden transgender housing directive

The Supreme Court on Tuesday opted against hearing a Christian college's challenge to a Biden administration rule that it says infringed on its policy of separating its residence halls by biological sex.

Missouri's College of the Ozarks challenged guidance from the Department of Housing and Urban Development asserting the illegality of housing discrimination on the basis of gender identity.

"The College’s code of conduct specifies that residence halls are single sex and assigned by biological sex, not gender identity," the college contended, according to the Washington Times. "The government’s rule change now deems the College’s housing policies to be discriminatory and its speech unlawful."

The Supreme Court did not explain its decision not to hear the case, though both a trial judge and appeals court panel rejected the challenge, asserting the Biden administration rule did not explicitly address religious organizations and that the school therefore had suffered no injury and lacked standing to challenge the rule.

In appealing to the high court, the college contended that the administration had denied the school its right to comment on the proposal prior to implementing it.

"If HUD gets away with rewriting the [Fair Housing Act] via the Directive, it has no incentive to ever go through the rule-making process. That eliminates judicial review until after an enforcement proceeding is complete and the regulated entity has already been harmed," attorneys for the college wrote, The Hill reported. The lower judicial bodies had previously rejected that argument.

The SCOTUS rejection effectively ends the case, though College of the Ozarks could conceivably begin a new challenge should the administration actually move to enforce its policy against the religious school.

Ben Whedon is an editor and reporter for Just the News. Follow him on Twitter.