The Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear an Indiana school district’s appeal of a ruling that blocked the district from requiring students to use the bathroom that corresponds with their sex.
The justices denied an appeal from the Metropolitan School District of Martinsville, where a girl claiming to be a boy was prohibited from using the boys restrooms at her middle school. Under the school’s policy, students could only access the bathrooms and locker rooms aligned with their sex rather than their preferred gender identity. With legal help from the ACLU of Indiana, the girl’s mother sued the school district and middle-school principal, arguing her daughter suffered “irreparable harm.”
In 2022, U.S. District Judge Tanya Pratt ruled in favor of the child, demanding the middle school allow her to enter the boys’ bathroom. In 2023, the Chicago-based 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the school’s policy had violated the child’s constitutional rights. Martinsville school district argued in defense that Title IX enshrines the legality of sex-separated bathrooms and that they are crucial for students’ safety.
The Supreme Court on Tuesday let the lower court’s decision stand, with no dissents. Though the transgender issue has escalated in schools, the Supreme Court has shied away from weighing in. In April, the justices did not allow West Virginia to enforce a law barring boys and men from K-12 and college women’s sports. Multiple GOP-controlled states have passed laws barring men from women’s sports and women’s spaces. Other red-state laws have banned the gender medicalization of minors and instruction of gender ideology in K-12.
The Biden administration last year proposed a Title IX rewrite under which public schools and other educational entities that receive federal funding would be forbidden from banning boys in girls sports, unless the school makes a compelling case to qualify for an exception. Under the policy, schools would have the high burden of proving that sports should be sex-exclusionary.
“The proposed rule would establish that policies violate Title IX when they categorically ban transgender students from participating on sports teams consistent with their gender identity just because of who they are,” the Department of Education wrote in April 2023. “The proposed rule also recognizes that in some instances, particularly in competitive high school and college athletic environments, some schools may adopt policies that limit transgender students’ participation.”
Judge Diane Wood, who issued the 7th Circuit opinion in the Indiana case, wrote that the Supreme Court will likely need to intervene on the transgender question in the future.
“Litigation over transgender rights is occurring all over the country, and we assume that at some point the Supreme Court will step in with more guidance than it has furnished so far,” Wood said.