Update to School Bathrooms: Yours, Mine or Ours?

August 22, 2016 By Robert D. Haws In Legal Alerts

The Texas Federal Court has granted the plaintiffs a preliminary injunction in the Title IX case concerning access to school bathrooms, locker rooms and other intimate areas. The Arizona Department of Education and Heber-Overgaard USD are two of the plaintiffs.

The order prevents the USDOE and DOJ “from enforcing the Guidelines [i.e. the May 13, 2016 DOE/DOJ Dear Colleague Letter on Transgender Students and its proposed interpretation of Title VII and Title IX that sex discrimination reaches an individual’s internal sense of gender rather than the historical interpretation of being based on a person’s biological sex] against Plaintiffs and their respective schools, school boards, and other public, educationally-based institutions.”

The Court’s injunction also prevents DOE or DOJ “from initiating, continuing, or concluding any investigation based on [DOE’s or DOJ’s] interpretation that the definition of sex includes gender identity in Title IX’s prohibition against discrimination based on sex.”

The injunction will remain in place until the court issues a final ruling on the merits of the case or until the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals gives further direction. Neither of those is likely to occur this school year.

Click here to read the School Bathrooms: Yours, Mine or Ours? alert from July 14, 2016.

For more information or questions, please contact any of our school law attorneys listed below.

Robert D. Haws | 602-257-7976 | rhaws@gustlaw.com
Jennifer N. MacLennan | 602-257-7475 | maclennan@gustlaw.com
Susan Plimpton Segal | 602-257-7425 | spsegal@gustlaw.com

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