Conservative justice swipes at DOJ in trans sports case: 'I don't think you're a PhD in this stuff'

By Fox News · Fox News

Justice Neil Gorsuch pressed the Department of Justice on Tuesday about the potential nationwide consequences of a Supreme Court ruling allowing states to ban transgender athletes who identify as women from competing in women’s and girls’ sports. Gorsuch grilled Principal Deputy Solicitor General Hashim Mooppan, who appeared on behalf of the government, during oral arguments about a case examining West Virginia's Save Women's Sports Act. Gorsuch asked Mooppan how a decision in favor of West Virginia's law, which blocked biological boys from participating in girls' sports, would jibe with Title IX and the Constitution's equal protection clause. Gorsuch used a hypothetical involving other academic programs to test how far sex-based distinctions could extend under Title IX, which bans sex-based discrimination in education. SUPREME COURT WEIGHS STATES' POWER TO SET SEX-BASED RULES IN SCHOOL SPORTS "What about the hypothetical I posed earlier that, when it comes to high school performance, girls sure are a lot better than boys, and so we're only going to have remedial classes for boys, and girls aren't free to attend. … Let's say I've got really good science," Gorsuch said. "I mean, it's all about the science, right? I got the science." Mooppan said that while men and women are typically equal under laws and the Constitution, "real, enduring obvious differences" mattered in sports. Mooppan sought to dismiss any "pseudoscience" Gorsuch was suggesting. "With all respect, I don't think there's any science anywhere that is suggesting that these sort of intellectual differences are traceable to biological differences," he said. Gorsuch shot back: "With respect, I don't think you're a PhD in this stuff, and neither – I know I'm not, but I'm asking to deal with a hypothetical." Gorsuch continued to question how potentially allowing West Virginia to discriminate on the basis of sex was possible in sports but not in other areas of education. "The statute says no discrimination o…