Federal Appeals Court Rules In Favor Of Transgender Student

Barry Brecheisen / AP

A federal appeals court on Tuesday ruled in favor of a transgender student's challenge to a Wisconsin school district's policy limiting his restroom usage — a big win for those seeking to advance transgender rights in the courts.

The decision of a unanimous three-judge panel of the US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit keeps in place a district court's preliminary injunction halting enforcement of the district's policy against the student, Ashton Whitaker.

"The School District has not demonstrated that it will suffer any harm from having to comply with the district court’s preliminary injunction order," the appeals court — which hears cases from Illinois, Indiana, and Wisconsin — held.

The appeals court upheld the lower court's rulings in favor of Whitaker on both statutory and constitutional grounds, finding that he is likely to succeed on his claim that he is protected from discrimination under the sex discrimination ban in Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 because he is transgender and that the school district's policy violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

Unlike the case brought by Gavin Grimm in Virginia that had — for a few months — reached the US Supreme Court, Whitaker's challenge, and Tuesday's decision, is independent of any Education Department or Justice Department policies on the question. (The appeals court decision in Grimm's case had deferred to Obama-era Education Department guidance on Title IX. As such, the US Supreme Court sent the case back to the lower courts when the Trump administration withdrew that guidance so other arguments could be considered.)

In the court's opinion in Whitaker's case, Judge Ann Claire Williams addressed Title IX independent of administration guidance. "A policy that requires an individual to use a bathroom that does not conform with his or her gender identity punishes that individual for his or her gender non‐conformance, which in turn violates Title IX," she wrote for the panel.

Regarding the constitutional argument, she noted that "the School District argues that since it treats all boys and girls the same, it does not violate the Equal Protection Clause."

"This is untrue," Williams wrote for the court. "Rather, the School District treats transgender students like Ash, who fail to conform to the sex‐based stereotypes associated with their assigned sex at birth, differently."

Because of that, Williams explained the school district would have to show "exceedingly persuasive" reasons justifying the policy.

"This burden has not been met here," she wrote.

Notably, the court also held that the school district's arguments to advance its claimed concerns about privacy are "based upon sheer conjecture and abstraction."

Specifically, Williams wrote, "The School District has failed to provide any evidence of how the preliminary injunction will harm it, or any of its students or parents. The harms identified by the School District are all speculative and based upon conjecture, whereas the harms to Ash are well‐documented and supported by the record."

Chief Judge Diane Wood and Judge Ilana Rovner also heard the case.

Source BuzzFeed - Politics http://ift.tt/2sj6k8b