Education University of Houston | ||
 | ||
Reed Charles O'Connor (born 1965) is a United States federal judge.
Contents
Early life and career
Born in Houston, Texas, O'Connor received a B.S. from the University of Houston in 1986 and a J.D. from South Texas College of Law in 1989. He was in private practice in Texas from 1989 to 1994 and an assistant district attorney with the Tarrant County District Attorney's Office in Fort Worth, Texas from 1994 to 1998. O'Connor then served as assistant United States Attorney of the Northern District of Texas from 1998 to 2007. From 2003 to 2007, he worked on the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary.
Federal judicial career
On June 27, 2007, O'Connor was nominated by President George W. Bush to a seat on the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas vacated by A. Joe Fish. The United States Senate confirmed O'Connor's appointment on November 16, 2007, and he received his commission on November 21, 2007.
On August 21, 2016, O'Connor made a ruling against the Obama administration dealing with the government's interpretation of Title IX rules. The guidance from the White House was issued in May 2016, and addresses the Title IX requirement that schools receiving federal funding not discriminate against students on the basis of sex. O'Connor ruled that the new guidelines did not receive proper notice and comment prior to publication, and that the law in Title IX is "not ambiguous" as to the "plain meaning of the term sex as used". As such, he issued an injunction preventing them from being enforced. O'Connor formally blocked the Obama administration's regulations on December 31, 2016 for a "likely" violation of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act and what he said was an improper inclusion of gender identity in Title IX anti-discrimination rules.