WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Tuesday missed an opportunity to intervene in the debate over bathrooms for transgender students, rejecting an appeal from an Indiana public school district.
Federal appeals courts are divided over whether school policies imposing restrictions on transgender students’ use of restrooms violate federal law or the Constitution.
In the case that the court dismissed without comment, the Chicago-based 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld an order allowing transgender boys access to boys’ restrooms. The call came from the Metropolitan School District of Martinsville, about 30 miles southwest of Indianapolis.
The federal appeals court in Richmond, Virginia, also ruled in favor of transgender students, while the appeals court in Atlanta came down the other way.
Legal battles over transgender rights are ongoing across the country, and at least nine states restrict transgender students to bathrooms that correspond to the gender they were assigned at birth.
In her opinion for the 7th Circuit, Judge Diane Wood wrote that the Supreme Court’s involvement seems inevitable.
“Litigations over transgender rights are taking place across the country, and we anticipate that at some point the Supreme Court will step in with more guidance than it has provided thus far,” Wood wrote.
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