The Independence Law Center today filed an amici brief with the United States Supreme Court on behalf of students in the Boyertown Area School District and Wayne Highlands School District. The brief describes how students have been sexually harassed and violated when schools like Boyertown and Wayne Highlands open up locker rooms and restrooms to opposite-sex students.
The law center filed the brief in Gloucester County School Board v. Gavin Grimm. Unlike Boyertown and Wayne Highlands, the Gloucester County School Board in Virginia separated privacy facilities like restrooms, locker rooms, and showers on the basis of sex. The school was sued by Gavin Grimm, a biological female who identifies as a male. Grimm argued that the school’s policy was humiliating and that facilities should be accessed on the basis of a student’s self-proclaimed identity rather than on the basis of our anatomical differences.
Grimm’s case is not new to the U.S. Supreme Court. It granted review during the Obama administration, but after Trump took office and changed federal guidance on these issues, the Supreme Court remanded the case. Unfortunately, the school lost again at the Court of Appeals and seeks review a second time before the U.S. Supreme Court.
“We have been fighting on behalf of students’ bodily privacy for years,” remarked Randall Wenger, Chief Counsel of the Independence Law Center. “We are glad for the opportunity to tell our clients’ stories and pray the U.S. Supreme Court will take this case so that the kind of sexual harassment that our clients experienced can stop.”
