Brave High School Students Take Action with Privacy Lawsuit

Apr 19, 2017 | 8 comments

SUMMARY:

The Boyertown Area School District, without parent or student notification, made an unwritten change to school policy and opened its sex-specific restrooms and locker rooms to students of the opposite sex. Four high-school students are now suing the district for their unlawful and harmful actions.

Both male and female students in BASD have had their privacy violated. Two of the plaintiffs were in the boys’ locker room in a state of undress, when they discovered a member of the opposite sex in the locker room with them. One of them saw a biological female wearing nothing above her waist other than a bra. He was told by the principal to “tolerate” it and make it “as natural as possible.”

One plaintiff discovered a boy in the girls’ bathroom.  She now feels she cannot return to school for her senior year because school officials are permitting boys into girls’ locker rooms and bathrooms. Another plaintiff now refrains from using facilities as much as she can.

“A woman’s right to bodily privacy does not spring into existence, or cease to exist, depending on what a man believes about the nature of his own internal sense of ‘gender identity.’ A woman’s bodily privacy is hers and hers alone, and a man’s bodily privacy is his and his alone, and they don’t disappear or come into existence based on the beliefs of a person of the opposite sex.”

– Jeremy Samek, Senior Counsel – Independence Law Center

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES:

Independence Law Center is a Pennsylvania-based pro-bono legal organization dedicated to advancing civil rights.