I’ve written extensively about the Fourth Circuit’s badly botched ruling in April in G.G. v. Gloucester County School Board. In its ruling, the panel majority never even reached the question whether Title IX’s bar on discrimination on the basis of sex somehow requires schools to discriminate on the basis of gender identity—by reserving boys’ restrooms for boys and girls who identify as male and by reserving girls’ restrooms for boys and girls who identify as female. Instead, it confused itself into thinking that a 1975 regulation gave G.G.—a girl who identifies as male—a right to use the boys’ restrooms at her high school.

Today the Supreme Court, by a 5-3 vote, granted an important procedural victory to the Gloucester County School Board by staying both the Fourth Circuit’s mandate and the preliminary injunction that the district court entered on remand from the Fourth Circuit. In short, the Court has blocked the Fourth Circuit’s ruling from taking effect until such time as it is able to address the certiorari petition that the school board intends to file.

(In a short concurring opinion, Justice Breyer explained that, given that four other justices were voting to grant the application, he was providing a fifth vote “as a courtesy” to preserve the status quo. Justices Ginsburg, Sotomayor, and Kagan recorded their dissents.)