Supreme Court lets win stand for trans student in Indiana bathroom ban case

The order puts off Supreme Court review of the legality of such bans across the country.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday let stand lower court rulings that allow a transgender boy to use the restroom that matches his gender identity, a win for the student.

The order protects transgender students within the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit — which includes Indiana, Illinois, and Wisconsin — and puts off any Supreme Court review of bathroom bans for some time, likely into 2025 or beyond.

The Tuesday decision directly only relates to the case of A.C., a transgender boy, and the challenge he brought to Metropolitan School District of Martinsville’s policy barring trans students from using the restroom that accords with their gender identity, but it also means the Seventh Circuit ruling in A.C.’s case will stand as precedent in the circuit.

The August 2023 ruling from the Seventh Circuit upheld a district court’s injunction against the school district in A.C.’s case. Judge Diane Wood, in her opinion for the court, reaffirmed an earlier ruling from the appeals court holding that trans-restrictive policies banning transgender students from using the restroom of their gender identity likely violate Title IX and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

In the course of Wood’s opinion — and in a concurring opinion from Judge Frank Easterbrook — the court noted that varying school district bans had led to conflicting rulings from other appeals courts and that, as Wood put it, “we assume that at some point the Supreme Court will step in with more guidance than it has furnished so far.”

That day was not today.

Martinsville had hired Paul Clement, the conservative lawyer and former solicitor general in the George W. Bush administration, to urge the justices to take the case. Law Dork reported earlier that Clement was paid $100,000 for the petition, a low amount for him but a significant fee for a school district.

The ACLU of Indiana, representing A.C., had argued that the Supreme Court lacked jurisdiction over the case because A.C. had graduated from middle school and was now in high school, where a different policy (and modified injunction) applies, and that the case was a “poor vehicle” to resolve the legal questions over the bans, in addition to arguing that the Seventh Circuit’s decision was correct.

The justices appeared to agree with the ACLU of Indiana, at least as to the jurisdictional or vehicle arguments. No justices wrote or otherwise noted their dissent to the decision to deny cert in the case.

As a result of Tuesday’s decision, however, that also means that other appeals court decisions on the matter will remain in force. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit — which covers Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, and West Virginia — has held that such bans can violate Title IX and equal protection guarantees. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, however, covering Alabama, Florida, and Georgia, has held otherwise.

Although Tuesday’s decision puts off any national resolution for now, there is other ongoing litigation that could soon reach the Supreme Court.

Challengers to Idaho’s statewide ban — which is on blocked currently — have appealed a lower court ruling denying an injunction to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. As Law Dork previously reported, the far-right Christian legal advocacy organization Alliance Defending Freedom is representing Idaho in the case at the Ninth Circuit “without charge.”

The ADF-Idaho Attorney General contract includes “potential future appeals before the U.S. Supreme Court.”