The Supreme Court on Monday ruled against a Virginia school board’s appeal to reinstate its transgender bathroom ban. The highest court decided not to take the case. The justices voted overwhelmingly to uphold a lower court’s decision that ruled that the school’s bathroom policy is unconstitutional.
As reported by nbcphiladelplhia.co, the case involved former high school student Gavin Grimm, who filed a federal lawsuit after he was told he could not use the boys bathroom at his public high school. Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas voted to hear the board’s appeal.
The Gloucester County, Virginia, school board’s policy required Grimm to use restrooms that corresponded with his biological sex, female, or private bathrooms.
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According to the New York Times, The Supreme Court had agreed to hear an earlier appeal in the case but dismissed it in 2017 after the Trump administration changed the federal government’s position on transgender rights. The Biden administration has since adopted policies protecting transgender students.
Last year, the Supreme Court for the first time ruled in favor of transgender rights, saying that a federal employment discrimination law applied to L.G.B.T.Q. workers.
Mr. Grimm welcomed the Supreme Court’s rejection of the school board’s appeal in the case, Grimm v. Gloucester County School Board, No. 20-1163.
Use the bathroom in peace
“I am glad that my yearslong fight to have my school see me for who I am is over,” he said. “Being forced to use the nurse’s room, a private bathroom and the girls’ room was humiliating for me, and having to go to out-of-the-way bathrooms severely interfered with my education. Trans youth deserve to use the bathroom in peace without being humiliated and stigmatized by their own school boards and elected officials.”
The American Civil Liberties Union, which represented Grimm in his yearslong lawsuit against Gloucester, argued that federal law makes it clear transgender students are protected from discrimination.
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