Is the U.S. Supreme Court the Next Stop?
The 4th Circuit Court of Appeals has just refused to hear a historic case that paved the way for the Departments of Justice and Education to issue sweeping guidance on preventing discrimination against transgender students.
The Federal Court of Appeals in Richmond, Virginia, denied the request, submitted by the Gloucester school system, to re-hear the case brought by a transgender boy, in court documents listed as G.G., but publicly known as Gavin Grimm. In April, the 4th Circuit Court siding with Grimm, upheld a previous ruling that federal civil rights laws include transgender people in cases involving education discrimination, and that Title IX protects transgender students
Grimm has been suing for the right to use the boys’ bathrooms in his school.
Today’s refusal to rehear the case means the school system’s only course of action to continue the case is to head to the U.S. Supreme Court. Given that there are only eight members on the court currently, a win for transgender rights would come either by the court refusing to hear the case, or by deciding in favor of equality, either of which is more likely given the court’s current composition.
According to NBC 12, “Grimm says he is ‘fighting this fight because no kid should have to think so hard about performing a basic and private function of being alive.'” He says that the school’s current policy, forcing him to only use a private, single-stall restroom, “would further alienate and stigmatize me by forcing me to use separate restrooms from all of the other students at school.”
Today’s ruling was a 2-1 decision. Writing the minority opinion, Judge Neimeyer says, “Time is of the essence and I can only urge the parties seek Supreme Court review.”
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