U.S. Supreme Court Rejects Case on Transgender Student Bathroom Access

(Bloomberg) -- The U.S. Supreme Court left intact a Pennsylvania school district policy of letting transgender high school students use bathrooms and locker rooms that match their gender identity.

The justices, without comment Tuesday, turned away an appeal by other students who said the policy violated their privacy rights because they might encounter transgender students while not fully clothed.

The rebuff leaves intact a policy put in place by the Boyertown Area School District in 2016, after President Barack Obama’s administration told public schools to let transgender students use the facilities of their choice.

Boyertown kept the policy even after President Donald Trump’s Education Department rescinded the Obama letter.

A decision to take the case would have put a culturally divisive issue before the Supreme Court in the run-up to the 2020 presidential election. In the nine-month term that starts in October, the court already will be considering whether federal job-discrimination law protects transgender and gay workers.

The case is Doe v. Boyertown Area School District, 18-658.

To contact the reporter on this story: Greg Stohr in Washington at gstohr@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Joe Sobczyk at jsobczyk@bloomberg.net, Laurie Asséo, Ros Krasny

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