US

Federal Court Sides With Trans Student Barred From Preferred School Bathroom

REUTERS/Carlo Allegri

Kevin Daley Supreme Court correspondent
Font Size:

A federal judge in Newport News, Va., ruled Tuesday that federal law allows a transgender teenager to sue his school district for barring his access to the bathrooms of his preference.

Though the ruling is not a decision on the merits of the controversy, U.S. District Court Judge Arenda Wright Allen’s decision is a boon to the LGBT community, as it found the trans student is covered by federal civil rights law.

The case was occasioned when Gavin Grimm, a 19-year-old student in the Gloucester County Public Schools, began using the men’s bathroom at his public high school. Grimm, who has since graduated, was born female but identifies as male. Gloucester Country schools require transgender students to use alternative facilities or the bathrooms is use by other members of their biological sex.

Grimm claims the district’s policy violates Title IX, which bans gender discrimination in education, and the Constitution’s equal protection clause. The Obama administration issued Title IX guidance requiring public schools to allow trans students access to bathrooms corresponding to their stated gender in May 2016.

The dispute reached the U.S. Supreme Court, but the justices punted when the Trump administration rescinded the Obama-era guidance, which mooted key elements of the dispute.

The decision endorses a relatively new civil rights theory arguing discrimination against trans people is already illegal as a matter of federal law. Title IX and other federal statutes like the Civil Rights Act forbid discrimination on the basis of sex. Such discrimination includes gender stereotyping or discriminating against individuals for failing to conform to expectations about sex. The Supreme Court affirmed this reading of the law in a 1988 case, Price Waterhouse v. Hopkins.

Since discrimination against LGBT groups arises from gender stereotyping — which is already unlawful — proponents of the theory say anti-trans discrimination in the workplace and in public schools is already illegal. (RELATED: Supreme Court Silent In Longrunning Immigrant Abortion Controversy)

Allen agreed this theory gives Grimm a viable claim against his former school district.

“After full consideration of the facts presented and the compelling scope of relevant legal analyses, the court concludes that Mr. Grimm has sufficiently pled a Title IX claim of sex discrimination under a gender stereotyping theory,” the judge wrote.

The court also found Grimm is protected by the Constitution’s guarantee of equal protection. Laws that treat individuals differently on the basis of sex are subject to high judicial scrutiny and are only permissible if they serve an important government interest. The school board said their policy protects its interest in student bathroom privacy, but Allen disagreed.

“The policy was not substantially related to protecting other students’ privacy rights, because there were many other ways to protect privacy interests in a non-discriminatory and more effective manner than barring Mr. Grimm from using the boys’ restrooms,” Allen wrote. “The board’s argument that the policy did not discriminate against any one class of students is resoundingly unpersuasive.”

Speaking after the decision, Grimm said he felt relieved and vindicated.

“After fighting this policy since I was 15 years old, I finally have a court decision saying that what the Gloucester County School Board did to me was wrong and it was against the law,” he told reporters.

A settlement conference will follow within 30 days.

Follow Kevin on Twitter

Send tips to kevin@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

PREMIUM ARTICLE: Subscribe To Keep Reading

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign Up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
BENEFITS READERS PASS PATRIOTS FOUNDERS
Daily and Breaking Newsletters
Daily Caller Shows
Ad Free Experience
Exclusive Articles
Custom Newsletters
Editor Daily Rundown
Behind The Scenes Coverage
Award Winning Documentaries
Patriot War Room
Patriot Live Chat
Exclusive Events
Gold Membership Card
Tucker Mug

What does Founders Club include?

Tucker Mug and Membership Card
Founders

Readers,

Instead of sucking up to the political and corporate powers that dominate America, The Daily Caller is fighting for you — our readers. We humbly ask you to consider joining us in this fight.

Now that millions of readers are rejecting the increasingly biased and even corrupt corporate media and joining us daily, there are powerful forces lined up to stop us: the old guard of the news media hopes to marginalize us; the big corporate ad agencies want to deprive us of revenue and put us out of business; senators threaten to have our reporters arrested for asking simple questions; the big tech platforms want to limit our ability to communicate with you; and the political party establishments feel threatened by our independence.

We don't complain -- we can't stand complainers -- but we do call it how we see it. We have a fight on our hands, and it's intense. We need your help to smash through the big tech, big media and big government blockade.

We're the insurgent outsiders for a reason: our deep-dive investigations hold the powerful to account. Our original videos undermine their narratives on a daily basis. Even our insistence on having fun infuriates them -- because we won’t bend the knee to political correctness.

One reason we stand apart is because we are not afraid to say we love America. We love her with every fiber of our being, and we think she's worth saving from today’s craziness.

Help us save her.

A second reason we stand out is the sheer number of honest responsible reporters we have helped train. We have trained so many solid reporters that they now hold prominent positions at publications across the political spectrum. Hear a rare reasonable voice at a place like CNN? There’s a good chance they were trained at Daily Caller. Same goes for the numerous Daily Caller alumni dominating the news coverage at outlets such as Fox News, Newsmax, Daily Wire and many others.

Simply put, America needs solid reporters fighting to tell the truth or we will never have honest elections or a fair system. We are working tirelessly to make that happen and we are making a difference.

Since 2010, The Daily Caller has grown immensely. We're in the halls of Congress. We're in the Oval Office. And we're in up to 20 million homes every single month. That's 20 million Americans like you who are impossible to ignore.

We can overcome the forces lined up against all of us. This is an important mission but we can’t do it unless you — the everyday Americans forgotten by the establishment — have our back.

Please consider becoming a Daily Caller Patriot today, and help us keep doing work that holds politicians, corporations and other leaders accountable. Help us thumb our noses at political correctness. Help us train a new generation of news reporters who will actually tell the truth. And help us remind Americans everywhere that there are millions of us who remain clear-eyed about our country's greatness.

In return for membership, Daily Caller Patriots will be able to read The Daily Caller without any of the ads that we have long used to support our mission. We know the ads drive you crazy. They drive us crazy too. But we need revenue to keep the fight going. If you join us, we will cut out the ads for you and put every Lincoln-headed cent we earn into amplifying our voice, training even more solid reporters, and giving you the ad-free experience and lightning fast website you deserve.

Patriots will also be eligible for Patriots Only content, newsletters, chats and live events with our reporters and editors. It's simple: welcome us into your lives, and we'll welcome you into ours.

We can save America together.

Become a Daily Caller Patriot today.

Signature

Neil Patel