(Headline USA) The Supreme Court declined Monday to take up an appeal from parents in Oregon who want to prevent “transgender” students from using locker rooms and bathrooms of the gender with which they identify, rather than their biological sex.
The case came from a school district near Salem, Oregon’s capital city.
The federal appeals court in San Francisco had upheld a Dallas, Oregon, school district policy that allows transgender students to use bathrooms and locker rooms that align with their gender identity.
Parents sued over the policy in 2017, saying it caused embarrassment and stress.
A lower court refused to block the policy and the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed that ruling, writing that the school district did not violate students’ constitutional rights or a law that protects people from discrimination based on sex in education programs.
Reuters reported, “The justices in a landmark decision in June ruled that federal law prohibits workplace discrimination against gay and transgender employees. But that ruling, written by conservative Justice Neil Gorsuch, made clear it was not addressing ‘bathrooms, locker rooms or anything else of the kind.’”
About 15,000 people live in Dallas, a town 15 miles west of Salem.
Adapted from reporting by Associated Press.
