Supreme Court Tosses Out Case Reviewing Bathroom Transgender Policies For Indiana School

The following report is by The Hill:

The justices in a brief order denied a request from a central Indiana school district to hear the case, which centers around a now-teenage transgender boy, identified in court documents as A.C., who was barred from using the boys restrooms at his former middle school.

The refusal to take up the case, which had no noted dissents, leaves unresolved a split among the nation’s federal appeals courts as to whether school districts are barred from enacting policies prohibiting transgender students from using bathrooms that align with their gender identity.

Transgender students have filed lawsuits across the country challenging their districts’ policies, contending they violate the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause and Title IX, the federal civil rights law prohibiting sex-based discrimination.

But the Supreme Court has shown a reluctance to wade into issues implicating transgender protections.

In 2021, the court similarly declined to weigh in on a transgender bathroom dispute. The justices last year declined to intervene to enforce West Virginia’s transgender athlete ban. And in June, the high court declined to disturb a ruling favoring a transgender woman who contested she was unlawfully deprived of her hormone treatment in jail.

Backed by 19 Republican state attorneys general as well as conservative and religious advocacy groups, the Metropolitan School District of Martinsville had hoped to use its case to convince the conservative-majority court that the time had come to step in.

“Not surprisingly in a diverse and divided nation, local jurisdictions have resolved this question differently,” wrote Paul Clement, a conservative legal heavyweight who represents the school district and has argued more than 100 cases before the Supreme Court.

And not surprisingly in a litigious society, these disputes have made their way to federal courts. The federal courts have proven as divided as local school boards.

Clement told the justices.

In a 2021 lawsuit filed on behalf of A.C. and his parents by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Indiana, attorneys for the family argued that A.C., while a student at John R. Wooden Middle School, was “caused irreparable harm” after he was denied access to the boys restrooms and locker rooms.

School staff routinely referred to A.C. using female pronouns despite protest from his mother and stepfather, according to court documents, and a request for A.C. to join the boys soccer team was denied at least twice.

A federal judge in April 2022 granted A. C’s request for a preliminary injunction…