Page:Adams ex rel. Kasper v. School Board of St. Johns County, Florida (2021).pdf/18

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USCA11 Case: 18-13592 Date Filed: 07/14/2021 Page: 18 of 80

The School District failed to show a substantial, accurate relationship between its sex classification and its stated purpose. And the Fourteenth Amendment requires a substantial, accurate relationship between a gender-based policy and its stated purpose. See Cleburne, 473 U.S. at 441, 105 S. Ct. at 3255; Craig, 429 U.S. at 198, 97 S. Ct. at 457; see also Village of Willowbrook v. Olech, 528 U.S. 562, 564, 120 S. Ct. 1073, 1074–75 (2000) (noting that the “purpose of the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment is to secure … against intentional and arbitrary discrimination, whether occasioned by express terms of a [policy] or by its improper execution” (quotation marks omitted)). Because the bathroom policy is arbitrary and does not do what it was designed to do, the School Board cannot show the requisite substantial relationship.

Therefore, we conclude the School District’s bathroom policy violates the Equal Protection Clause.^[1]

↑ We note that the Fourth and Seventh Circuits, the only other circuits to consider challenges to bathroom policies brought by transgender students, along with the majority of district courts that have addressed the issue, have also ruled that the challenged policies violate equal protection, albeit on different or additional grounds. See Whitaker, 858 F.3d at 1051–54 (holding a transgender boy demonstrated likelihood of success on the merits of his equal protection claim to use the boys’ restroom, because the policy was based on “sex-based stereotypes,” because the policy was based on a privacy rationale founded on “sheer conjecture and abstraction,” and because the policy was “arbitrary”); Grimm, 972 F.3d at 606–15 (affirming grant of summary judgment to transgender boy on equal protection claim, because the policy subjected him to sex discrimination for failing to “conform to the sex stereotype propagated by the [p]olicy,” because transgender people constitute a “quasi-suspect class,” and because the policy was “marked by misconception and prejudice” against the transgender student (quotation marks omitted)); see also A.H. ex rel. Handling v. Minersville Area Sch. Dist., 408 F. Supp. 3d 536, 576–78 (M.D. Pa. 2019) (granting summary judgment to transgender girl on equal protection claim for access to girls’ restroom, because the school district lacked an “exceedingly

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[p18-1] We note that the Fourth and Seventh Circuits, the only other circuits to consider challenges to bathroom policies brought by transgender students, along with the majority of district courts that have addressed the issue, have also ruled that the challenged policies violate equal protection, albeit on different or additional grounds. See Whitaker, 858 F.3d at 1051–54 (holding a transgender boy demonstrated likelihood of success on the merits of his equal protection claim to use the boys’ restroom, because the policy was based on “sex-based stereotypes,” because the policy was based on a privacy rationale founded on “sheer conjecture and abstraction,” and because the policy was “arbitrary”); Grimm, 972 F.3d at 606–15 (affirming grant of summary judgment to transgender boy on equal protection claim, because the policy subjected him to sex discrimination for failing to “conform to the sex stereotype propagated by the [p]olicy,” because transgender people constitute a “quasi-suspect class,” and because the policy was “marked by misconception and prejudice” against the transgender student (quotation marks omitted)); see also A.H. ex rel. Handling v. Minersville Area Sch. Dist., 408 F. Supp. 3d 536, 576–78 (M.D. Pa. 2019) (granting summary judgment to transgender girl on equal protection claim for access to girls’ restroom, because the school district lacked an “exceedingly

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