A Florida school district’s policy that requires students to use bathrooms based on their biological sex is constitutional, according to a federal appeals court.
In a 7-4 ruling Friday, the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta determined the St. Johns County School Board’s policy of requiring students to use bathrooms according to their biological sex, or a sex-neutral bathroom, was not a violation of the U.S. Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause or Title IX federal regulations.
The lawsuit was brought by Drew Adams, a biological female who identifies as male. In 2015, Adams started ninth grade at Nease High School in Ponte Vedra, Florida, and wanted to use boys' bathrooms. But under the school board’s policy, and after complaints by fellow students, Adams was told to only use the girls bathroom or a sex-neutral bathroom.
Adams filed the lawsuit in 2017, and U.S. District Judge Timothy Corrigan ruled in Adams' favor in 2018. A panel of the 11th Circuit Court ruled 2-1 in Adams’ favor in 2020, leading the full court to hear the case. Adams has since graduated from the high school.
In the majority opinion, Judge Barbara Lagoa, a Donald Trump appointee, wrote the school board did not have transgender students in mind when it wrote its policy, and the board went to significant efforts to accommodate such students. The majority also cited the policy’s intent to protect the privacy of students.
“The School Board’s bathroom policy is clearly related to — indeed, is almost a mirror of — its objective of protecting the privacy interests of students to use the bathroom away from the opposite sex and to shield their bodies from the opposite sex in the bathroom, which, like a locker room or shower facility, is one of the spaces in a school where such bodily exposure is most likely to occur.”
Lagoa was joined in the majority by Chief Judge William Pryor, appointed by George W. Bush, and Judges Kevin Newsom, Elizabeth Branch, Britt Grant, Robert Luck and Andrew Brasher, each of whom was appointed by Trump. The four judges in the dissent, Jill Pryor, Charles Wilson, Adalberto Jordan and Robin Rosenbaum, were appointed by Democratic presidents.
"This is an aberrant ruling that contradicts the rulings of every other circuit to consider the question across the country," Tara Borelli, an attorney with Lambda Legal representing Adams, said in a statement, according to Reuters. "We will be reviewing and evaluating this dangerous decision over the weekend."
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