The Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear a case challenging an Oregon school district’s policy allowing transgender students to use locker rooms and bathrooms of their choice.
The case, which the court declined without comment, arose in 2017 after a group of parents in a school district near Salem, Oregon, alleged that a policy letting students choose locker rooms according to their gender identity violated Title IX, which prohibits sexual discrimination at federally funded schools. The group, Parents for Privacy, also argued that the district had violated the 14th Amendment’s guarantee of the right to privacy by allowing biological males to change in the same room as biological females.
Parents for Privacy in its filing with the court argued that the school district’s policy “interferes with parents’ rights to direct the upbringing of their children, schoolchildren’s rights to bodily privacy, parents’ and children’s rights to free exercise of religion, and children’s rights to be free from hostile educational environments.”
The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in February upheld the district’s rules, pointing to previous decisions finding that transgender bathroom policies do not violate the 14th Amendment or create “sexually harassing environments,” as the parents had alleged.
The Supreme Court’s decision not to hear the case comes on the heels of its ruling in Bostock v. Clayton County, a landmark decision in gay and transgender rights. In Bostock, the court reinterpreted Title VII of the Civil Rights Act to include sexual orientation and gender identity in classes protected “on the basis of sex” in employment law.
During the Bostock arguments, multiple justices brought up the transgender bathroom question, speculating that their decision would bring the issue back into the foreground.
When the court ruled in favor of rereading Title VII, many administrators at schools opposed to its new interpretation predicted the update would eventually lead to a revision of Title IX to protect gay and transgender students from sexual discrimination in schools.
