The Department of Justice has sued the Loudoun County School Board in connection with a Title IX locker room case, alleging that two Christian high school students were discriminated against for raising religious objections to the school’s transgender bathroom practices.
On Monday, the DOJ announced that it filed a federal lawsuit against the Northern Virginia school district’s policymaking body over Policy 8040, which allows students to access school restrooms and locker rooms corresponding with their “consistently asserted gender identity,” regardless of biological sex.
The DOJ says Policy 8040 requires all students, without regard for their religious beliefs, to adopt the school board’s views on gender and accordingly affirm the gender identity of their transgender peers.
“From using preferred pronouns to sharing intimate spaces with students of the opposite sex, the School Board’s policy unconstitutionally directs Plaintiffs to go against their sincere religious beliefs and practice,” the suit says.
In particular, the lawsuit alleges that Loudoun County Public Schools wielded its transgender inclusion rules against a pair of Christian students, who were threatened with suspensions following “retaliatory” Title IX proceedings, in violation of the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause.
At Stone Bridge High School, a student who identifies as transgender was able to access the boys’ locker room pursuant to Policy 8040, and in one incident from March, illicitly filmed male classmates, some of whom were changing clothes, as they discussed among themselves their discomfort with the transgender student’s presence.
OPINION: LOUDOUN COUNTY PUNISHES STUDENTS FOR BEING SEXUALLY HARASSED
The school district, however, then brought Title IX sexual harassment charges against the sophomore boys. One of the boys, who is Muslim, was cleared of wrongdoing, while the other two students, who are Christian, were suspended.
Monday’s court filings say that the school board’s disciplinary actions “intentionally discriminated on the basis of religion.” In the suit, the DOJ accuses LCPS of “recasting” constitutionally protected activity as discriminatory conduct. According to the DOJ, the two Christian boys who spoke out are obligated by their religious beliefs to respect the biological differences between sexes and accordingly use sex-segregated facilities.
“Loudoun County’s decision to advance and promote gender ideology tramples on the rights of religious students who cannot embrace ideas that deny biological reality,” Assistant U.S. Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon, chief of the Justice Department’s civil rights division, said in a press release.
Invoking a landmark 1969 Supreme Court case concerning student free speech rights, Dhillon added, “Students do not shed their First Amendment rights at the schoolhouse gate.”
The DOJ has moved to intervene on behalf of the boys, who had filed an equal protection claim under the Civil Rights Act of 1964 in S.W. et al. v. Loudoun County School Board. That case is currently pending before the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia. For now, LCPS is barred from disciplining the boys while the case moves forward.
Over the summer, Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares, whose office launched an investigation into the school system’s alleged mishandling of the locker room incident, referred the matter to federal authorities. Toward the start of this school year, the Department of Education’s civil rights office concluded the boys were wrongly punished.
Josh Hetzler, an attorney at the Family Foundation of Virginia’s Founding Freedoms Law Center, the law firm representing the boys, said in a statement issued on Monday that the suspensions marked a “clear departure” from constitutional protections.
“Our clients were disciplined not for misconduct, but for expressing concerns about privacy and safety—concerns any reasonable student should be free to voice,” Hetzler said. “The Constitution does not permit public schools to rebrand orthodox Christian beliefs as ‘harassment.’ The Justice Department’s intervention reinforces that fundamental truth.”
LOUDOUN COUNTY SCHOOL DISTRICT HIT WITH NEW CONSPIRACY CLAIMS IN TRANSGENDER LOCKER ROOM CASE
LCPS is one of five Northern Virginia school districts potentially facing federal funding cuts for refusing to scrap their respective transgender policies that permit students to access school facilities of their own choosing.
The Washington Examiner contacted LCPS officials for comment.