The political Left keeps accusing the Supreme Court of being the phalanx of crusading right-wingers, yet all but two justices keep embracing Chief Justice John Roberts’s preference for avoiding tough decisions as long as possible.

Today, only Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito argued against punting away an important decision about males participating in women’s or girls sports . Thomas and Alito made their case well, while the other seven issued no explanation.

At issue is a West Virginia law to keep female sporting events for biological women only. When the law was challenged on both statutory and constitutional grounds, a federal district court did a thorough review before granting summary judgment in favor of the state’s law keeping the sexes separate athletically.

Alas, a divided panel (in other words, not unanimous) of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals issued an injunction putting the law on hiatus until a full appeal can be heard. The state asked the Supreme Court to lift the injunction and allow the law to be enforced in the interim, but the other seven justices refused to lift the injunction.

Ordinary jurisprudence clearly favors the stance of Alito and Thomas.

As the seven other justices did today, the Fourth Circuit had issued its injunction without a single explanatory comment. “Enforcement of the law at issue,” wrote Alito in dissent , “should not be forbidden by the federal courts without any explanation,” especially when “the District Court granted summary judgment to the State based on a fact-intensive record.”

Two considerations apply. First, under ordinary circumstances, a duly passed law should be presumed valid until held otherwise. Second, a district court’s exhaustive findings of fact usually should be respected unless a higher court explains why the district court appears to be in error.

Granted, an injunction would be in order if the balance of irreparable harm in the meantime would fall more heavily on one side than the other. Consider a hypothetical case in which one side wants to chop down a rare tree. An injunction would be in order while the appeal is being heard because of course if the tree were chopped down during the appeal, the case would become moot.

But such a factor isn’t present here. The ordinary status quo was that boys and girls compete separately. The West Virginia law would codify what is already ordinary practice. With no major imbalance of potential irreparable harm, the law should again be presumed valid, and the district court’s decision should be presumed valid unless and until a higher court explains why both should be in abeyance pending appeal.

In sum, the status quo in practice, along with the thoroughly considered actions of both a legislature and a district judge, should be left alone. Girls should be free from direct athletic competition from boys until and unless the merits of the boys’ legal arguments, after full court consideration, have been accepted.

For Justices Roberts, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, Amy Coney Barrett, and Ketanji Brown Jackson to let the playing field stay tilted without a word of elucidation is an abandonment of duty and of right reason.