The U.S. Supreme Court handed President Donald Trump’s administration a major win on Tuesday by lifting a lower court order that prevented the Pentagon from implementing a transgender military ban.
According to The New York Post, the Supreme Court approved the Trump administration’s emergency petition on Tuesday to stay an injunction that was previously upheld by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, which prevented the Pentagon from moving forward with Trump’s transgender military ban.
According to Fox News, U.S. District Judge Benjamin Settle initially blocked the Trump administration’s transgender military ban with a preliminary injunction in March prior to the 9th Circuit upholding the injunction, which led to the administration’s emergency petition to the Supreme Court.
Fox News reported that while Tuesday’s order did not address the merits of the president’s executive order or of the case, “Shilling v. United States,” the Supreme Court’s decision temporarily allows the Trump administration to move forward with its plan to ban transgender individuals from the U.S. military.
Trump’s executive order directs the Department of Defense to update its policy regarding “trans-identifying medical standards for military service” and to “rescind guidance inconsistent with military readiness.”
In the petition to the Supreme Court, the president’s administration warned that preventing the transgender military ban from being implemented by the Pentagon could threaten the readiness of the U.S. military, according to Fox News.
READ MORE: Trump transgender military ban denied by judge
U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer told the Supreme Court, “Absent a stay, the district court’s universal injunction will remain in place for the duration of further review in the Ninth Circuit and in this Court – a period far too long for the military to be forced to maintain a policy that it has determined, in its professional judgment, to be contrary to military readiness and the Nation’s interests.”
According to Fox News, Trump administration officials have claimed that the transgender military ban “furthers the government’s important interests in military readiness, unit cohesion, good order and discipline, and avoiding disproportionate costs.” On the other hand, the outlet reported that the plaintiffs in Shilling v. United States have claimed that the president’s executive order “turns away” transgender service members and “kicks them out – for no legitimate reason.”
Fox News reported that the plaintiffs have argued that Trump’s executive order “baselessly declares all transgender people unfit to serve, insults and demeans them, and cruelly describes every one of them as incapable of ‘an honorable, truthful, and disciplined lifestyle, even in one’s personal life,’ based solely because they are transgender.”
