The US supreme court has decided it will not hear a case centering on the debate over bathrooms for transgender students.
The decision came on Tuesday despite an appeal from Indiana’s metropolitan school district of Martinsville.
Martinsville school district officials hoped the nation’s highest court would not require allowing transgender students to use the bathrooms of their choosing.
But the supreme court rejected the case without comment.
Federal appeals courts are divided over whether school policies enforcing restrictions on which bathrooms transgender students can use violate federal law or the US constitution.
In the 2023 case court brought by the Martinsville metropolitan school district, the Chicago-based US seventh circuit court of appeals ruled in favor of transgender boys, granting them access to the boys’ bathroom.
The seventh circuit’s opinion, written by judge Diane Wood, said that she expected the nation’s highest court to eventually be involved.
Wood wrote: “Litigation over transgender rights is occurring all over the country, and we assume that at some point the supreme court will step in with more guidance than it has furnished so far.”
The federal appeals court in Richmond, Virginia, also has ruled to allow transgender students to use the gendered bathroom with which they identify. But the US appellate court based in Atlanta ruled against granting that legal ability.
Court battles over transgender rights are ongoing across the country. And at least nine states are restricting transgender students to bathrooms that match the sex they were assigned at birth.
Some claim it’s a move in violation of Title IX, the US civil rights law passed in 1972 which prohibits sex discrimination at educational institutions that receive federal funding.
In 2021, the supreme court rejected hearing a similar case involving a Virginia school, upholding a lower court’s ruling that the Gloucester county school board’s decision to prohibit a transgender boy from using the boy’s restroom was unlawful.
Battles over transgender students’ right to play for their preferred sports teams are also taking place.
Last year, supreme court justices decided against taking up a case that started after a West Virginia school district banned a transgender girl, Becky Pepper-Jackson, from competing for a girls’ track and cross-country teams. The decision upheld a lower court’s ruling that Pepper-Jackson could compete for the girls’ teams if she wanted.
The Joe Biden administration last year weighed in on the debate, proposing that schools may block some transgender athletes from competing on sports teams that match their gender identities under certain circumstances while arguing against blanket bans.
The Department of Education wrote in April 2023: “The proposed rule would establish that policies violate Title IX when they categorically ban transgender students from participating on sports teams consistent with their gender identity just because of who they are.
“The proposed rule also recognizes that in some instances, particularly in competitive high school and college athletic environments, some schools may adopt policies that limit transgender students’ participation.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report
