The Supreme Court granted review of questions 2 and 3 presented in the school board’s petition for writ of certiorari from the Fourth Circuit’s badly confused decision in G.G. v. Gloucester County School Board. Those questions are:

2. If [the doctrine of Auer deference] is retained, should deference extend to an unpublished agency letter that, among other things, does not carry the force of law and was adopted in the context of the very dispute in which deference is sought?

3. With or without deference to the agency, should the Department’s specific interpretation of Title IX and 34 C.F.R. § 106.33 be given effect?

This is a very encouraging development. The Court might, in the end, still get things wrong, but it at least isn’t letting the Fourth Circuit’s mess go unreviewed.

(I’ve written extensively both about the G.G. ruling in particular (e.g., here) and about the Obama administration’s misreading of Title IX (e.g., here.)