The U.S. Supreme Court declined to consider a dispute surrounding an Indiana transgender student’s bid to use preferred bathrooms on Tuesday, leaving in place an appeals court ruling favoring the student.
The Metropolitan School District of Martinsville asked the justices to conclude that there should be no requirement to allow transgender students to use bathrooms of their choosing. The high court declined to wade into the contentious topic in an unsigned order on Tuesday.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit ruled against the school district in 2023, upholding a district court judge’s injunction that allowed several transgender students to use bathrooms that don’t correspond with their biological sex.
A decision not to intervene means that lawsuits in lower courts nationwide over transgender bathroom disputes will continue, as judges have reached a variety of conclusions on the question. Due to the divergent rulings, the Supreme Court is likely to weigh in on this matter in the future.
In response to growing legal conflicts involving transgender policies, the Biden administration has said it believes Title IX protects against discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, arguing that transgender students should be covered under sex discrimination protections as well.
In 2020, Supreme Court justices ruled 6-3 that a federal law that bars sex discrimination in employment protects people who identify as LGBT, and the case that was declined Tuesday asks whether the same reasoning applies to Title IX.
The Supreme Court had already declined to wade into a separate transgender dispute earlier this year involving a Missouri college’s lawsuit challenging the Biden administration’s requirement to open dorm rooms and shared shower spaces to members of the opposite sex.
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One of the court’s most conservative justices, Samuel Alito, also issued a blistering dissent in June after his eight other colleagues declined to weigh an appeal by a Fairfax County sheriff over a lawsuit brought by a biologically male transgender inmate who claimed to belong on the women’s side of the Fairfax County Adult Detention Center.
The high court also declined to take up a case in 2021 on the transgender bathroom topic in public schools. Notably, the justices allowed a biological male who identifies as a woman in West Virginia to continue playing girls sports last year.
