Judge rejects challenge to Ohio school district’s transgender bathroom policy

The federal judge wrote, ‘Not every contentious debate, concerning matters of public importance, presents a cognizable federal lawsuit’

Federal judge dismisses legal challenge to transgender bathroom policy in Ohio

A federal judge dismissed a lawsuit brought by America First Legal against an Ohio school district over its transgender bathroom policy.

America First Legal filed the suit in November. The president of the organisation is Stephen Miller, who served as a senior White House adviser to former President Donald Trump. District Judge Michael Newman ruled on Monday that the organisation’s claims lacked standing, and the board’s new policy did not infringe on the parents’ free exercise of religion.

“The [parents] do not have a substantive due process right to dictate to the School District which bathroom a transgender student must use,” Judge Newman wrote in the filing. “The School District’s bathroom policy applies evenly to all students, making no exception for anyone based on their religion, to allow each student’s identified gender to prescribe the bathroom to use.”

“Today’s ruling reaffirms that the Constitution is not a vehicle to compel discrimination. Nothing in the (Constitution) guarantees of parenting rights, equal protection, or free exercise of religion mandates that transgender students be excluded from gender-appropriate communal restrooms on the basis of their classmates’ beliefs and values,” said David Carey, deputy legal director at the ACLU of Ohio.

“For public schools to function, one student’s or family’s religious beliefs cannot provide a basis to exclude another student from full participation in the school environment,” he continued.

According to the most recent filing, one transgender student, Anne, transferred to Bethel Middle School in January 2020, and was told to use the single-use bathroom.

But “she felt ostracized, humiliated, and targeted by other students who taunted her for using the separate bathroom,” the filing states.

At a September 2021 school district board meeting, a faculty member asked to change rules surrounding the school district’s current bathroom policy, which was divided by biological sex. The Bethel Local School District Board of Education announced the change at a January 2022 meeting to align with the faculty member’s suggestion.

Anne was told she could use the girls’ restrooms.

This change was made “in secret,” the complaint alleged, because “there was no public discussion, deliberation, or voting of any kind related to intimate facility use being based on gender identity instead of biological sex.” This move, the suit continued, violated Ohio law.

Furthermore, the new rule, the complaint argued, hindered students’ (and parents of students who chose where their children attended school) exercise of religious freedom.

Therefore, it continues, “the Board is treating religious students and parents, including the Plaintiffs, worse than the transgender students and parents and denying religious students, including the Plaintiffs, an educational benefit that the Board is providing for the transgender students.”

The complaint stated that the Board placed a “substantial burden” on cisgendered students and forced them to violate their core beliefs. So, through this policy, the suit alleged that “the Board is violating the Plaintiffs’ rights under both the United States Constitution and the Ohio Constitution.”

“Not every contentious debate, concerning matters of public importance, presents a cognizable federal lawsuit,” the judge wrote in Monday’s filing.