SCOTUS declines Christian college's appeal to fight Biden admin's transgender housing directive in advance

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The Supreme Court declined to hear a Christian college's appeal to sue the Biden administration over a federal order the college says requires schools to house students based on gender identity rather than biological sex, The Hill reported Tuesday.

"The U.S. Supreme Court left this issue unresolved. The Biden admin must be held accountable, and Alliance Defending Freedom will continue to confront government overreach," Alliance Defending Freedom senior counsel Julie Marie Blake told TheBlaze Tuesday in a statement.

"College of the Ozarks brought this challenge for one reason: The Biden administration was attempting to force them to open their dormitories to members of the opposite sex. Though the high court chose not to review this case, we are hopeful it will soon take up related cases—both challenges to the broad overreach of the Biden administration and the government’s repeated attempts to remove from law any real distinctions between males and females," Blake also said.

"Because the college's faith teaches that sex is based on male-female biology, not gender identity, the college assigns its dorms, roommates, and intimate spaces by sex and communicates that policy to students," College of the Ozarks explained in its appeal to the SCOTUS earlier this year, as reported in USA Today.
The College of the Ozarks filed a lawsuit in April 2021 over an executive order and an associated Housing and Urban Development directive it says could force the school to violate its beliefs by housing biological men in women's dorms and vice versa, as TheBlaze reported.

The College of the Ozarks, a Christian school, wanted to make dormitory assignments that correspond with students' biological sex.

Under Biden's executive order that required sexual orientation and gender identity to be considered when interpreting sex-discrimination aspects of federal laws, the school could potentially face a sex-discrimination action if it were to deny the request of a transgender student to be housed in the sex-segregated dormitory of his or her choice.

A federal judge rejected the College of the Ozarks' request to bypass the rule in May 2021, saying that it did not have standing since it had not, as yet, suffered injury. The school appealed, saying it did not have the opportunity to comment on the order before it went into effect, as explained in The Hill.

Today's unsigned order from the Supreme Court will allow the lower court's ruling to stand.

If the Biden administration were to take an enforcement action against the school, it is possible that school could file a new case. One such scenario might unfold if the school denied a biological male student's request to be housed in the women's dorms.

"It is wrong to force schools to open girls’ dorms, bedrooms, and shared showers to males, and ADF will do everything in its power to ensure that religious colleges remain free to protect the young women who attend their institutions. No matter what happens next: College of the Ozarks will continue to follow its beliefs," ADF senior counsel Julie Marie Blake said in a statement acquired by TheBlaze.

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'We're here! We're queer! Get used to it!': President of college founded by Methodists promotes LBGTQ mural in freshman dorm



The president of Emory University — an Atlanta college founded by Methodists — promoted an LGBTQ mural recently painted on the wall of a residence hall for freshmen students.

What are the details?

A video showing the mural was on President Greg Fenves' Instagram page under a "Move-In" subheading as of Tuesday morning.

The stairwell mural depicts five protesters adorned with some colors from the LGBTQ rainbow flag holding signs that read, "The Kiss," "Pride," and "We're here! We're queer! Get used to it!"

Image source: Instagram video screenshot via @gregfenves, composite

Another mural seen in the video depicts Democratic political activist Stacey Abrams, who failed in her bid to become Georgia governor in 2018 but afterward was credited with helping flip the state blue during the 2020 election — and also in a special January 2021 election that tipped the balance of power in the U.S. Senate to Democrats.

In addition, one of Abrams' groups — the New Georgia Project — came under investigation last year for "repeatedly and aggressively" seeking to register "ineligible, out-of-state, or deceased voters" before the state's Jan. 5 Senate runoffs.

Next to Abrams in the mural is an image of John Lewis, a civil rights icon and longtime Democratic congressman from Georgia who died last year at the age of 80.

Also in the mural is an image of a person who appears to be Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Image source: Instagram video screenshot via @gregfenves

Both murals were painted in Emory's Alabama Hall, a dormitory for first-year students, Campus Reform reported, adding that they were installed prior to students moving in for the fall semester.

The outlet added that Emory University itself shared images of the murals on its Instagram story.

Anything else?

Emory's website indicates that while Methodists founded the school in 1836, it has "grown into a place where people of all different faiths and degrees of devotion come together." Indeed, the featured image on Emory's "Religious & Spiritual Life" page shows the Dalai Lama greeting a crowd of smiling faces.

Campus Reform said Emory hasn't responded to its inquiry regarding whether the university paid to have the murals created; the outlet added that the school also did not respond to a request for comment.