U.S. Supreme Court blocks transgender bathroom choice for now, by David Ingram, 8/4/16, Reuters
A Virginia school board may temporarily
block a student who was born a girl from using the boys' bathroom while a legal
fight over transgender rights proceeds on appeal, the U.S. Supreme Court said
on Wednesday.
The
case is the first time the fight over transgender bathroom rights has reached
the Supreme Court. The subject arrived in the heat of a U.S. presidential
election in which the makeup of the court is a central issue.
In
a brief order, the country's highest court put on hold an order from a lower
court that had permitted the high school student to use the bathroom of his
choice.
Last
year, the American Civil Liberties Union sued on behalf of Gavin Grimm, 17, to
challenge the Gloucester County School Board's bathroom policy, which requires
transgender students to use alternative restroom facilities.
A
lawyer for Grimm, Joshua Block, said he and his client were disappointed by the
order and "disappointed that Gavin is going to have to begin another
school year being stigmatized and separated from his peers as a result of this
policy."
The
school board in coastal Gloucester County, about 140 miles (225 km) south of
Washington, D.C., welcomed the decision.
"The
board continues to believe that its resolution of this complex matter fully
considered the interests of all students and parents in the Gloucester County
school system," the board said in a statement.
The
eight-member Supreme Court voted 5-3 to stay the lower court's order. Justices
Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan would have denied the
school board's request that it be able to block a student from exercising
choice in use of a bathroom, according to the order.
The
order was not a final ruling on the subject. Instead, it rewound the fight to
where it was in April before a federal appeals court in Richmond, Virginia,
ruled in Grimm's favor.
That
ruling by the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals was the first by an appeals
court to find that transgender students are protected under federal laws that
bar sex-based discrimination.
In
court papers last month, the school board's lawyers said the 4th Circuit
wrongly deferred to the view of President Barack Obama's administration that
prohibitions on sex discrimination under federal law also apply to gender
identity.
In
May, the Obama administration directed public schools nationwide to allow
transgender students to use bathrooms that correspond to their gender identity
or risk losing federal funding. So far, 23 states have sued to block the
directive.
Justice
Stephen Breyer, of the Supreme Court's liberal wing, joined with its most
conservative members in temporarily siding with the school board.
Breyer
wrote in a one-sentence explanation that he did so as a courtesy to preserve
the status quo until the Supreme Court has a chance to consider the subject
more fully.
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