The American Civil Liberties Union took up Grimm’s case and a federal appeals court ruled in April that Grimm was allowed to use the boy’s bathrooms at the school.
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The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit disagreed, and issued an injunction that required the school to allow transgender students to use restrooms in accordance to their gender identity. In his concurring brief, Justice Stephen Breyer said granting the stay “will preserve the status quo” until the Supreme Court decides whether it will consider a school board request that it review the matter.
While the board prepares to appeal the decision, it asked the Supreme Court to block the lower court order.
The grant from the Supreme Court, said Block, essentially pauses the case and allows a policy that says boys and girls bathrooms are limited to “corresponding biological genders” to go into effect. “Now hopefully other transgender people will not have to face this type of discrimination”.
“As I stated in my letter to the Alabama State Board of Education in May, the recent federal transgender restroom directive to America’s public schools is based on a legally erroneous interpretation of federal law and will not stand up to legal scrutiny”, AG Strange added. Instead, its lawyers sent a “guidance” to school officials advising them that in the department’s view, Title IX, adopted in 1972, means that excluding transgender students from facilities that fit their gender identity amounts to illegal sex discrimination.
Morrisey says the Obama Administration did not have the legal authority to act on this decision and this stay by the Supreme Court is the best decision.
The highest court in the U.S. put on hold a previous ruling from a lower federal court which said the student, Gavin Grimm, 17, should be allowed to use whichever facilities he chose.
In September, U.S. District Judge Robert G. Doumar ruled against Grimm’s request for a preliminary injunction and said the board’s policy doesn’t violate federal sex discrimination law.
A petition for a writ of certiorari, or a petition for the court to hear the appeal, is due by August 29, but the court may not hand down a yes or a no until October.
Ultimately, though, the Supreme Court sided with the school board, putting a temporary hold on the decision, in a 5-3 vote.
The case is G.G. v. Gloucester County School Board.
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However, on December 9, 2014 the transgender restroom policy stopped him from using the bathroom of his choice, according to the complaint. He would finally be able to use the restroom without being isolated. Breyer also noted that the court is now in recess, and that four justices had voted in favor of the school district.
