Interpreting Civil Rights Statutes

In a conversation with The Regulatory Review, Katie Eyer discusses how the statutory interpretation methodologies of courts shape the enforcement of civil rights laws and the role of administrative agencies in implementing antidiscrimination statutes.

Civil rights statutes rely on judicial interpretation to determine their scope, including the proper mechanisms to enforce rights. Courts have developed a range of interpretive doctrines that shape how these statutes operate in practice. At the same time, administrative agencies play a central role in translating civil rights mandates into enforceable rules and guidance, positioning courts as key arbiters of both statutory meaning and agency authority.

Eyer explains how recent Supreme Court decisions concerning administrative deference and statutory interpretation may reshape this enforcement framework. She discusses how courts assess agency interpretations of civil rights statutes after Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo—which overturned the Chevron doctrine under which courts deferred to reasonable agency interpretations of ambiguous statutes—and considers the implications for regulatory protections, including those affecting LGBTQ+ individuals. Eyer situates these developments within broader debates about the allocation of interpretive authority among courts, agencies, and Congress.

Katie Eyer is a professor of law and Judge Guido Calabresi Scholar at Rutgers Law School. Her scholarship, published in numerous leading legal journals, focuses on anti-discrimination law, social movements and constitutional change, and statutory interpretation. Prior to entering academia, Eyer worked as a civil rights litigator and founded the Employment Rights Project at Equality Advocates Pennsylvania, one of the first initiatives in the country devoted to advancing workplace protections for LGBTQ+ people.

The Regulatory Review is pleased to share the following interview with Katie Eyer.

The Regulatory Review: What drew you to study statutory interpretation and civil rights enforcement together? What is the relationship between them?

Eyer: I have come to view many of the biggest problems with civil rights enforcement as arising from the courts’ approach to statutory interpretation. There is a long history of the courts engrafting civil rights statutes with limitations and defenses that do not actually appear in the language of the law. Some of these defenses are relatively well-known, such as the qualified immunity defense to Section 1983 of the Civil Rights Act. Others are esoteric and less well known, such as the “same actor defense” or the “stray remarks doctrine.”

All of these doctrines serve to prevent otherwise meritorious civil rights claims from prevailing in court—even where discrimination or another civil rights violation in fact took place. In my view, one important solution to this problem is simply requiring the courts to adhere to the language of the law through textualism or another interpretive methodology that requires faithful adherence to statutory text.

TRR: In its 2024 decision in Loper Bright, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council, which required judicial deference to reasonable agency interpretations of ambiguous statutes. How will Loper Bright affect courts reviewing the work of civil rights agencies?

Eyer: After Loper Bright, courts should be focused on whether agency positions are consistent with the scope of any statutory delegations to the agency. However, initial signs are that courts may not consistently follow this approach. For example, courts may be unwilling to disturb longstanding agency interpretations where they are politically popular or where judges believe them to be correct.

One striking example is Title IX, which explicitly prohibits any differential treatment on the basis of sex, subject to a series of statutory exceptions. Athletics is not one of these exceptions—at most, the statute allows agencies regulatory leeway in the area of “intercollegiate athletic activities.”

Nevertheless, no one expects the Supreme Court, for example, to strike down bans on transgender girls’ participation in K-12 sports—an issue before it this term—much less entirely eliminate sex-segregated K-12 sports, which is an outcome few, if any, observers support.

TRR: Following recent Supreme Court decisions such as Bostock v. Clayton County—which held that Title VII’s prohibition on sex discrimination included discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity—and United States v. Skrmetti—which upheld the constitutionality of state bans on gender-affirming medical care for minors under the Equal Protection Clause—reflect dramatically different approaches to the scope of regulatory protections for LGBTQ+ people What role do you expect agencies will play in addressing anti-LGBTQ+ discrimination? What role should they play?

Eyer: We have seen sharply divergent approaches to LGBTQ+ discrimination under the Biden and Trump Administrations. The Biden Administration embraced the logic of Bostock—and its implications for statutes with virtually identical language—and subsequently adopted LGBTQ+ protective regulatory positions across a variety of areas.

In contrast, in the Trump Administration, many agencies have sought to weaponize sex discrimination law to justify or even compel anti-LGBTQ+ discrimination. For example, use of gender identity-appropriate restrooms by transgender girls and women has been characterized by the Administration as unlawful sex discrimination against cisgender people.

The Trump Administration’s approach does not yet have substantial legal support—Skrmetti, as a non-statutory decision, does not change or overrule Bostock. However, there are two pending Title IX cases this term—West Virginia v. B.P.J. and Little v. Hecox—that could substantially alter the legal landscape.

TRR: As judicial interpretive methods evolve, what types of legal arguments or approaches will litigants likely advance in civil rights cases, particularly those involving administrative agencies?

Eyer: The rise of textualism in the federal courts, as well as the overruling of Chevron in Loper Bright, calls on litigants in civil rights cases to rethink how they approach civil rights cases that relate to administrative law.

Some civil rights statutes, such as Title IX, have become so associated with their regulations that some advocates, and even some judges, do not bother to read the statute and treat the regulations as the law. This is a mistake for litigants on both sides of civil rights disputes. Often, the statute’s text will afford novel arguments, even in the context of longstanding regulatory positions.

TRR: What questions are most urgent for scholars and advocates working at the intersection of administrative law and civil rights today?

Eyer: Those who support civil rights have long been accustomed to thinking about civil rights agencies as partners, and they often have been historically. But as the current Administration shows, much harm can also be done through the work of civil rights agencies.

For example, we have seen the current Administration use Title VI to attack race-conscious programs and Title IX to require regulated entities to adopt anti-LGBTQ+ positions. One important question that civil rights scholars and advocates will need to confront as we move forward is whether a strong administrative state remains a net positive for promoting civil rights today.

A second important question for civil rights scholars and advocates to consider today is how best to navigate the increasing constitutional constraints that the Supreme Court has put on civil rights enforcement—by agencies or otherwise. What is the role of the democratic branches in promoting civil rights when there is a constitutional—religious, speech-based, or due process— right to discriminate? How does the increasing “constitutionalization” of “reverse discrimination” claims affect the ability of the state to redress longstanding structural inequality? These questions and others like them have become increasingly stark in the context of the Supreme Court’s incremental constitutional campaign against civil rights.