WASHINGTON, D.C. (LifeSiteNews) — The U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear an Indiana school district’s appeal of a ruling forcing it to allow “transgender” students into opposite-sex restrooms, allowing the policy to stand.
The Daily Wire reported that in 2021 the left-wing American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) sued the Indianapolis-area Metropolitan School District of Martinsville on behalf of a biological female student at John R. Wooden Middle School who identifies as male and was barred from accessing boys’ restrooms and locker rooms, instead being granted the accommodation of using a unisex bathroom in the nurse’s office, which she objected to due to its distance from her classrooms.
A federal judge issued a preliminary injunction against the school in 2022, after which the case was consolidated with two other similar cases in the Hoosier State. A three-judge panel of the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals sided with the student in August, determining that the male students cannot be required to use girls’ restrooms because they “appear to be boys in the eyes of the State of Indiana.”
On Tuesday, the nation’s highest court released an order list revealing that the school’s appeal in the case, Metropolitan School District v. A.C. (the student’s alias), had been denied, without elaborating why or identifying how individual justices ruled. Four justices are sufficient to get the Court to hear a case, meaning no more than three of the Court’s six Republican-appointed justices could have voted to take up the issue.
“Unfortunately for now, our schools will be forced to allow transgender students to use whichever bathroom they feel corresponds to the gender identity they’ve picked to use on that day,” said a spokesperson for Indiana Republican Attorney General Todd Rokita. “We will continue our fight so regular, common-sense Hoosier parents can raise their children free of this toxic transanity.”
District superintendent Eric Bowlen told Newsweek the district is “deeply disappointed that the U.S. Supreme Court has denied its petition to resolve an issue that has divided federal courts and left school districts across the country in disarray. As the education system continues to evolve rapidly, local school boards must be empowered to navigate sensitive emerging issues with discretion to serve the best interests of students.”
He added that the district will “consult closely with legal counsel to determine appropriate next steps that are both in compliance with the law and what is best for our students and community.”
Critics argue that forcing girls to share intimate facilities such as bathrooms, showers, or changing areas with members of the opposite sex violates their privacy rights, subjects them to needless emotional stress, and gives potential male predators a viable pretext to enter female bathrooms or lockers by simply claiming transgender status.
In Virginia, the issue was dramatically illustrated with Loudoun County School District’s cover-up of the rape of a female student by a “transgender” classmate in a girls bathroom due to its damaging implications for the LGBT movement.
As for the Supreme Court, this is far from the first time the current “conservative” majority has disappointed conservatives. It has delivered conservatives major victories on gun rights, environmental regulation, affirmative action, and most significantly abortion with the overturn of Roe v. Wade, but it has also issued dismissive rulings on COVID-19 vaccine mandates, religious freedom, and LGBT accommodation, to the point that Bush-appointed Justice Samuel Alito and Trump-appointed Justice Neil Gorsuch have taken the rare step of criticizing Trump-appointed Justices Amy Coney Barrett and Brett Kavanaugh for lacking the “fortitude” to resolve such issues.