Local rule for school districts just got shaken up this week. A recent court decision undermined a major decision by an Indiana school district for its students.

At issue is a case involving a trans-identifying female student who was stopped from using the boys bathroom. The student sued the district and a federal court sided with the student.

The district continued the fight, appealing all the way up to the Supreme Court of the United States. They hoped common sense would restore their authority to protect kids in schools.

Surprisingly, SCOTUS shut the door on the appeal by not taking up the case. Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita, who supported the school district, criticized the Supreme Court’s decision through a spokesperson.

From The Daily Wire:
“Unfortunately for now, our schools will be forced to allow transgender students to use whichever bathroom they feel corresponds to the gender identity they’ve picked to use on that day,” the spokesperson stated.

The attorney general pledged to continue fighting for “common-sense Hoosier parents” who want to raise their children free of toxic cultural influences.

The Supreme Court’s decision to rebuff the appeal follows a pattern by the high court to avoid cases involving trans-identifying people. The court declined to make decisions in another bathroom dispute and a case where a trans-identifying man claimed he had been denied cross-sex hormones in jail. SCOTUS also denied enforcement of a West Virginia trans-identifying athlete ban.

The Indian Metropolitan School District case was prompted by a lawsuit filed by Indiana’s American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) chapter on behalf of a student at John R. Wooden Middle School. The ACLU argued that the trans-identifying student suffered “irreparable harm.”

The student, according to the lawsuit, was barred from using the boys’ bathroom and locker room “with other boys.” The ACLU claimed the student was required to use the girls’ bathroom or a single-person bathroom in the nurse’s office, “which was far from his classes.”

The lawsuit also claimed school staff referred to the student with female pronouns even after the child’s mother and stepfather objected to the practice. The student and her family were granted a preliminary injunction by a federal court in 2022 before the case was combined with two similar cases. All three students changed their birth certificates to indicate that they identified as a male.

A three-judge panel with the Chicago-based 7th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled last year that since the three trans-identifying students “appear to be boys in the eyes of the State of Indiana” the school districts’ rules would be contrary to state law.

Key Takeaways:

• The U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal in a lawsuit by a transgender student.
• Indiana school districts must now allow students to use the bathroom of their choice.
• The Indiana ACLU supported a trans-identifying student in suing for “irreparable harm.”

Source: The Daily Wire