High court: School can block transgender teen from boys room

Although Justice Antonin Scalia’s death in February left the Court with only eight justices, five votes are still required to grant a stay under its rules.

The Supreme Court on Wednesday temporarily blocked a Virginia transgender student who identifies as male from using the boys’ bathroom at his high school, giving local officials time to file a full appeal of a lower court ruling that sided with the high-school junior.

Block said that Grimm “is a boy and lives accordingly in all aspects of his life” but that “the sex assigned to him at birth was female”.

The stay will remain in effect until the Court can consider the school board’s request for an appeal when its next term begins on October 4.

In a brief order, the country’s highest court put on hold an order from a lower court that had permitted the high school student to use the bathroom of his choice.

In May, the Obama administration directed public schools nationwide to allow transgender students to use bathrooms that correspond to their gender identity or risk losing federal funding.

The school board says it plans to ask the Supreme Court to review the appeals court decision by late August.

The stay was previously denied by the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit in Richmond. It takes four votes for the Supreme Court to hear a case.

Breyer wrote in a one-sentence explanation that he did so as a courtesy to preserve the status quo until the Supreme Court has a chance to consider the subject more fully.

The ACLU and the ACLU of Virginia brought the lawsuit on behalf of Grimm, arguing that the school board’s policy, which segregates transgender students from their peers by requiring them to use “alternative, private” restroom facilities, violates the U.S. Constitution and Title IX, a federal law prohibiting sex discrimination by schools.