INDIANA – Attorney General Todd Rokita is defending the right of Martinsville Schools to require students to use bathrooms corresponding with their biological sex.
“Boys’ bathrooms are for boys, and girls’ bathrooms are for girls,” Attorney General Rokita said. “I realize this concept is difficult for leftist America-haters to fathom, but most Hoosiers are rightly perplexed that we would even need to defend such basic common sense.”
A 13-year-old biological female student who identifies as male has sued the Martinsville school district and the principal of John R. Wooden Middle School over being denied entrance to the boys’ bathroom. The student has repeatedly flouted the school’s policy and used the boys’ bathroom anyway — despite the option of using a single-occupant bathroom as an alternative.
The student’s lawsuit, filed through the student’s mother, also demands that the school require staff and other students to refer to the student as a male. It further demands that the school allow the student to participate on the boys’ soccer term.
Failing to accommodate the student in these ways, the student’s lawsuit argues, constitutes discrimination against the student in violation of federal Title IX rules and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
After a U.S. district court granted a preliminary injunction in favor of the student, the school district appealed to the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals
Attorney General Rokita is leading a 21-state amicus brief refuting the student’s arguments and supporting the school district.
“Opening boys’ and girls’ bathrooms to students of the opposite biological sex threatens the privacy and safety of all students,” Attorney General Rokita said. “No law requires schools to go down that dangerous path. No controlling precedent holds that Title IX or the Equal Protection Clause means that schools must permit students to use whatever bathrooms they like.”
In January, Attorney General Rokita led a similar multistate brief in defense of Vigo County Schools.
This week’s amicus brief is attached.
