Attorneys general intervene on behalf of transgender student in Indiana
A coalition of 22 state attorneys general have filed an amicus brief in opposition to an Indiana school district’s efforts to bar a transgender male student from using boys’ bathrooms.
The attorneys general are arguing in support of a 13-year-old student, identified only as A.C., who sued the Metropolitan School District of Martinsville after being denied access to boys’ bathrooms at the middle school he attends. A U.S. District Court judge ruled earlier this year that the school system must allow the student to use the bathrooms that align with his gender identity, and the district has appealed.
A.C. was born female, but identifies as male and has presented himself as male since he was 9 years old.
In their friend-of-the-court brief, the attorneys general, citing experiences in their states, assert that “ensuring transgender people have access to public facilities consistent with their gender identity—including access to common restrooms—benefits all, without compromising safety or privacy, or imposing significant costs.”
The bathroom restrictions that the Martinsville district is seeking to impose violates Title IX regulations prohibiting sex-based discrimination, the attorneys general contend.
“[T]he policy fails to advance any legitimate interest such as protecting public safety or personal privacy,” the brief argues. “Its only function is to stigmatize a particular group, which violates equal protection.”
The attorneys general also cited the lower court’s finding that the Martinsville district failed to show that allowing A.C. to use boys bathrooms would infringe on the privacy of other students.
“No student has complained concerning their privacy,” the lower court said. “The School District’s concerns with the privacy of other students appears entirely conjectural. No evidence was provided to support the School District’s concerns.”
Court documents state that A.C. “sometimes tries to go the entire day without using the restroom at all,” despite the physical discomfort it causes and serious health consequences that could result. The brief cites a 2019 GLSEN survey in which 82.1% of transgender student said they had avoided school bathroom because they felt unsafe or uncomfortable.
Evidence presented to the district court said the bathroom restrictions imposed on A.C. caused him to be late for class disrupted his ability to focus in school, worsened his anxiety and depression, made him feel isolated and made “being at school painful.”
Martinsville’s policy “needlessly denies A.C. something most people take for granted: the ability to use a public restroom consistent with one’s lived experience of one’s own gender,” the brief says. “The policy singles out transgender students like A.C. and forces them either to forgo restroom use or to choose between two other detrimental options: using common restrooms corresponding to their sex assigned at birth or using special single-user restrooms.”
Forcing transgender students to use bathrooms corresponding to their sex assigned at birth “subjects them to potential harassment and violence, and violates medical treatment protocols,” the attorneys general assert.
The attorneys general say that the experiences in their states with nondiscriminatory bathroom policies do not compromise personal privacy.
“[N]ondiscriminatory policies have neither generated privacy issues nor imposed substantial costs on schools,” the brief asserts. “The risk that students will see others’ intimate body parts, or have their intimate body parts seen by others, is not presented by ordinary restroom use. And in any event, concerns about the presence of others (whether or not transgender) can be addressed—and are being addressed—by increasing privacy options for all students, without singling out transgender people for stigmatizing differential treatment.”
Martinsville is about 35 miles southwest of Indianapolis.
The states represented in the amicus brief: California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington, and the District of Columbia.
Florida governor ousts 4 Broward County school board members
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has removed four Broward County School Board members from their positions after a grand jury faulted their actions in connection with the 2018 Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School mass shooting.
DeSantis said he was following the recommendations of the grand jury, which called for suspending the board members because of their “incompetence, neglect of duty, and misuse of authority.”
The grand jury said that a safety-related alarm that could have possibly saved lives at Marjory Stoneman Douglas “was and is such a low priority that it remains uninstalled at multiple schools.” It also found that students in Broward County schools “continue to be educated in unsafe, aging, decrepit, moldy buildings that were supposed to have been renovated years ago.”
The shooting attack at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland left 17 students and staff dead and 17 injured.
“These are inexcusable actions by school board members who have shown a pattern of emboldening unacceptable behavior, including fraud and mismanagement, across the district,” DeSantis said in a news release.
DeSantis removed Patricia Good, Donna Korn, Ann Murray and Laurie Rich Levinson from office — and appointed Torey Alston, Manuel “Nandy” A. Serrano, Ryan Reiter and Kevin Tynan to replace them.
