The Supreme Court has sided with the Trump administration in lifting a lower court’s order that paused the Pentagon’s transgender military ban.
In a short order on Tuesday, the high court handed the White House win as Trump seeks to unmake the Biden-era diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) agenda. The court stayed a lower court order, allowing the Pentagon policy to take effect. Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson would have denied the administration’s appeal and kept the lower court injunction in place.
At issue in the suit, Shilling v. United States, is President Donald Trump’s January executive order banning transgender military members. The order required the Department of Defense to update its guidance regarding “trans-identifying medical standards for military service” and to “rescind guidance inconsistent with military readiness.”
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Seven transgender military members proceeded to then bring suit against the administration in a Seattle-based federal court in early February. Trump was dismissed from the suit as a defendant in his official capacity as the suit played out in court.
The initial complaint argued that the executive order “turns” away transgender military members “and kicks them out – for no legitimate reason.”
“Rather, it baselessly declares all transgender people unfit to serve, insults and demeans them, and cruelly describes every one of them as incapable of ‘an honorable, truthful, and disciplined lifestyle, even in one’s personal life,’ based solely because they are transgender,” it continued.
U.S. District Judge Benjamin Settle had issued a preliminary injunction in March that blocked the administration from identifying and removing transgender service members as the suit worked its way through legal proceedings.
In his opinion granting the injunction, Settle characterized the ban as a “blanket prohibition on transgender service.” Settle found the plaintiffs would likely succeed on the merits of their equal protection, First Amendment, and procedural due process claims, among others.
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“The government’s arguments are not persuasive, and it is not an especially close question on this record,” Settle wrote.
Settle wrote in his order that the injunction was to “maintain the status quo of military policy regarding both active-duty and prospective transgender service” that were in place prior to Trump’s January 27 executive order.
The administration quickly appealed the order to the Ninth Circuit, requesting the appellate court stay Settle’s order.
The administration argued in court filings that the policy “furthers the government’s important interests in military readiness, unit cohesion, good order and discipline, and avoiding disproportionate costs.”
A three-judge panel – composed of Judges Atsushi Wallace Tashima, a Clinton-appointee, John B. Owens, an Obama-appointee, and Roopali H. Desai, a Biden-appointee – denied the administration’s request for a stay on March 31.
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The stay would have allowed the administration to enforce the ban while the legal challenge moved forward.
“The Department of Justice has vigorously defended President Trump’s executive actions, including the Prioritizing Military Excellence and Readiness Executive Order, and will continue to do so,” a Justice Department official told Fox News Digital at the time.
Shilling v. United States is just one of several suits challenging the Trump administration’s military ban.
Transgender plaintiffs also notably sued in D.C. federal court where U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes also initially blocked the ban from going into effect.
Fox News Digital’s Breanne Deppisch contributed to this report.
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