Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/23pdf/24a78_f2ah.pdf
Page Number: 9.0

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DEPARMENT OF EDUCATION v. LOUISIANA 

SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting in part 

After unsuccessful efforts to seek relief from these over-
broad injunctions in the lower courts, the Government asks 
this Court to stay the injunctions in part.  The Government 
does not contest the continued injunction as to §106.31(a)(2) 
(regulating access to sex-separated spaces) or §106.2’s defi-
nition of hostile environment harassment as applied to gen-
der identity discrimination.  Instead, it asks this Court to 
stay the injunction as to §106.2’s definition of hostile envi-
ronment harassment as applied to other forms of sex dis-
crimination, §106.2’s other definitions, §106.10, and the re-
mainder of the Rule’s unchallenged provisions. 

II 

I would grant most of the Government’s stay requests and 
leave enjoined only its enforcement of the three challenged 
provisions.4  A preliminary injunction is an “extraordinary”
exercise  of  equitable  authority,  appropriate  only  “upon  a 
clear showing” that a party is “entitled to such relief.”  Win-
ter v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., 555 U. S. 7, 
22 (2008).  To obtain a preliminary injunction, a party must
establish, among other things, that it would likely suffer ir-
reparable harm without equitable relief.  Ibid.  Even when 
a party makes that showing, though, a court must tailor eq-
uitable relief to redress the party’s alleged injuries without
burdening the defendant more than necessary.  See Mad-
sen,  512  U. S.  at  765  (“[An]  injunction  [should  be]  no
broader  than  necessary  to  achieve  its  desired  goals”);  Ya-
masaki,  442  U. S.  at  702  (explaining  that  “relief  afforded 
[to] the plaintiffs” must not “be more burdensome than nec-
essary to redress the complaining parties”).

Here,  respondents’  alleged  injuries  flow  from  the  chal-
lenged provisions.  Even assuming respondents established 
that those provisions subject them to a threat of irreparable 
harm, enjoining enforcement of the entire Rule appears to 
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4 For §106.2, I would leave enjoined only its definition of “hostile envi-

ronment harassment.”