Attorney General Jeff Sessions criticized federal judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit after they ruled Monday that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act bars employment discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.

The Justice Department filed a friend-of-the-court brief in the case last year, arguing that if Congress intended the law to cover sexual orientation, lawmakers would have explicitly included that language. Sessions, speaking to a group of state attorneys general in Washington, D.C., Tuesday, said the court’s ruling goes against those of nine other circuit courts, and noted the Second Circuit originally ruled the opposite, but that the court, sitting en banc, reversed its own precedent.