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Society does not understand or know how to handle students that are transgender.  The uncertainty causes fear and confusion among other students, parents, and community.  Studies and research have shown that students who feel safe and included perform better in schools than those who do not (Corbat, 2017).  Schools must try their best to create an environment of safety for all students, but, schools struggle.

In education, there are laws that have been put in place to protect students from discrimination and segregation.  Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 (Title IX), prohibits discrimination in educational programs based on sex (Human Rights Campaign, n.d.).  To solve the transgender issues, states like North Carolina have created their own laws.  House Bill 2 (HB2), passed in 2016, stated individuals must use the restrooms of their biological gender and forbids future legislation protecting the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) individuals (Corbat, 2017).  This law goes against Title IX and discriminates against LGBT.

To attempt to clarify the rights of transgender students, the United States Department of Education, along with the United States Department of Justice, published a guide to help schools make sure the civil rights of transgender students are met.  This guide states the civil rights of LGBT students will be protected and guarantees them access to use the restroom of their identity (Human Rights Campaign, n.d.).  To defend their bathroom law, North Carolina has earmarked over half a million dollars in their emergency fund to defend HB 2 for future lawsuits (Corbat, 2017).

Limited bathroom rights of transgender students may not seem like it would have a major impact on students, but students who use the bathroom that is not associated with their identity keeps them from feeling safe and included. Students who do not feel safe or included will not perform as well as those who do feel safe.  Parents and community are concerned about the safety of non-transgender students using the same restroom, but studies have shown the students who receive harassment and bullying are the transgender students (Corbat, 2017).  The civil rights of LGBT students has recently come to the forefront of education and will continue to change and transform.

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Human Rights Campaign. (n.d.). A guide for schools on Department of Education guidance. Retrieved from https://www.hrc.org/resources/a-guide-for-schools-on-department-of-education-guidance

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Since 1980, we’ve led the way in fighting for LGBTQ+ equality and inclusion.

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Corbat, J. (2017). When laws solve problems that do not exist: Transgender rights in the nation's schools. High School Journal, 100(2), 85.

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Transgender rights are at the forefront of society and public education. There is debate on both sides of the issue with no agreement in sight.

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A Connecticut judge has cited government immunity in dismissing a lawsuit by the parents of two children killed in the 2012 Newtown, Connecticut, school massacre against the town and its school district over alleged inadequate security measures.

Superior Court Judge Robin Wilson, in a decision released Tuesday, granted the town's request to dismiss the lawsuit, agreeing school officials were immune from being sued and the security procedures in place were discretionary.

"Emergencies, by their very nature, are sudden and often rapidly evolving events, and a response can never be one hundred percent scripted and directed," Wilson wrote.

"To say that the faculty and staff of the school were to act in a prescribed manner in responding to an emergency situation would likewise be illogical and in direct contradiction to the very purpose of governmental immunity: allowing for the exercise of judgment without fear of second-guessing," she wrote.

The shooting killed 20 1st-graders and six educators at Sandy Hook Elementary School on Dec. 14, 2012. Gunman Adam Lanza, 20, fatally shot his mother at their Newtown home before going to the school, where he killed himself as police arrived. Lanza shot his way through a locked glass entryway to get into the building.

The parents of two 1st-graders killed in the shooting, Jesse Lewis and Noah Pozner, sued the town on several claims, including that school officials didn't follow security procedures including immediately ordering a school lockdown after Lanza shot his way in, which they say may have saved lives. They also said the school's classroom doors could only be locked from the outside in the hallway, making it impossible for teachers to safely lock them as Lanza approached their classrooms.

Their lawyer, Donald Papcsy, said they will appeal the ruling and hope the state Supreme Court overturns it.

"This ruling (which every parent should read) should serve as NOTICE to all parents of young boys and girls: Our children are not safe in public schools," Papcsy said in a statement.

"From our neighbors in Sandy Hook, to the young men and women of Parkland, the legislatures and judicial systems have decided for all of us that, even when the facts support a total breakdown of school security protocol, the 'immunity' laws are used as an excuse to prevent parents from holding them accountable," he said. "We will continue to fight for this cause so that, someday, we can live in a world where we know our children are going to come home at the end of the school day."

The lawsuit also alleged that school officials failed to provide keys to either teacher Victoria Soto or substitute teacher Lauren Rousseau so they could follow school lockdown procedures, if ordered, and lock their doors.

Fifteen students and Rousseau were killed in Room 8, and five students and Soto were slain in Room 10.

Charles DeLuca, a lawyer for the town, said Lanza was solely responsible and liable for the shooting.

"We don't believe that there was any evidence that the town or its employees or the Board of Education was negligent or at fault in any way for this tragedy that occurred," DeLuca said Tuesday.

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Judge Dismisses Sandy Hook Parents' Lawsuit Over Security

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A Connecticut judge has cited government immunity in dismissing a lawsuit by the parents of two children killed in the 2012 Newtown, Connecticut, school massacre against the town and its school district over alleged inadequate security measures.

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Article headlines under the Law and Courts Section included the topics of transgender, teacher strikes, school security, and funding.

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In interviewing Carey Carter, the Director of Curriculum, Assessment and Instruction, I was able to learn about some of the legal and ethical issues facing schools and districts.

The Top 5 Legal & Ethical Issues
1.  School Finance
2. A-F Accountability and how the ratings will impact community perception.
3.  Special Education Requirements, specifically adding cameras to classrooms.
4.  District of Innovation employment practices
5. Tinker vs DesMoines-the right for students to protest and the recent April 20th protest by high school students against school shootings

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Upon completion of the Master of Education with Principal Certification, I hope to be employed as a full time CTE Director.

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Rulings trend against emerging Trump position

Two recent federal court rulings add to the growing body of decisions that find legal protections for transgender students in federal antidiscrimination laws and that run counter to the views emerging from President Donald Trump's administration on the issue.

In late May, a federal appeals court refused to block a Pennsylvania school district's policy of permitting transgender students to use the restrooms or locker rooms consistent with their gender identity. One unusual aspect of the case involving the Boyertown Area School District is that a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit, in Philadelphia, ruled unanimously from the bench, about a half hour after hearing oral arguments on May 24, to reject an injunction sought by a group of students who contend the district's pro-transgender policy harms their privacy.

The court issued a brief written order the same day stating that a formal opinion would follow but that it was embracing the reasoning of the federal district judge in the case, who had rejected the privacy arguments of the students opposing the Boyertown district's transgender-inclusive policy.

Earlier that week, on May 22, a federal district judge in Virginia ruled in favor of a female-born transgender teenager, Gavin Grimm, who challenged his school district's policy of barring him from using the restrooms for males.

"This court joins [other federal district and appellate courts] in concluding that claims of discrimination on the basis of transgender status are per se actionable under a gender stereotyping theory under Title IX" of the Education Amendments of 1972, said the decision by U.S. District Judge Arenda L. Wright Allen of Norfolk, Va., in the case involving the Gloucester County, Va., school district.

The judge also found that the 14th Amendment's guarantee of equal protection of the law applied to transgender students.

"Since the new administration came into office in 2017 and began revoking guidance [on transgender legal protections under Title IX], court after court has held that the statute itself protects trans people and LGB [lesbian, gay, and bisexual] people from discrimination, and that you don't need that agency guidance," said Joshua A. Block, a senior staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union's LGBT and HIV Project, who represents Grimm.

Seeking Further Clarification

The Trump administration did not file briefs in the Boyertown or Gloucester County cases (nor in other pending transgender cases). But a range of actions since Trump took office in January 2017 have fueled the view that the administration does not support an interpretation of Title IX that covers transgender discrimination.

U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos told a House education committee hearing on May 22 that court precedent was mixed on the issue of legal protections for transgender students and that neither the U.S. Supreme Court nor Congress had settled the question.

"That is not an area where law has been clarified," DeVos said. "I am not going to make up law from the Department of Education."

In early 2017, the Trump administration rescinded Education Department guidance issued under President Barack Obama that interpreted the department's Title IX regulations to require schools to allow transgender students to use the restroom and locker rooms consistent with their gender identity. This past February, the department indicated that its office for civil rights will no longer investigate complaints from transgender students related to restroom discrimination.

However, DeVos has repeatedly said that all students, including transgender students, deserve protection from bullying and unfair treatment in schools.

While the Trump administration has not yet fully formalized its views on the protection of transgender students under Title IX, there are other clues about the direction it is headed.

Wave of Rulings

Just as there has been much litigation over Title IX and transgender students in recent years, there has been a wave of lower court rulings interpreting the protection against sex discrimination in employment in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to cover cases of bias against gay workers.

In a case involving a gay employee of a New York state skydiving company who alleged discrimination by his employer, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit, in New York City, ruled in February that "sexual orientation is a function of sex and, by extension, sexual orientation discrimination is a subset of sex discrimination."

The U.S. Department of Justice under Trump filed a friend-of-the-court brief in the case arguing that discrimination based on sexual orientation is not sex-based bias covered by Title VII.

"An employer who discriminates based on sexual orientation alone does not treat similarly situated employees differently but for their sex," the administration's brief argued. "Gay men and women are treated the same, and straight men and women are treated the same."

The skydiving company on May 30 filed an appeal with the Supreme Court. The legal analysis of sex discrimination in Title VII has been influential for those courts that have ruled on Title IX and transgender students as well.

In ruling in the Grimm case in May, Judge Wright cited Title VII more than 20 times as she held that Title IX prohibition against discrimination "based on sex" in federally funded education programs encompasses bias against transgender students.

"Allegations of gender stereotyping are cognizable Title VII sex discrimination claims and, by extension, cognizable Title IX sex discrimination claims," Wright said.

The ACLU's Block said that while Wright's decision clears the way for a trial in Grimm's case, the main issue of dispute between the parties is the legal question that the judge decided-that Title IX protects transgender students against discrimination.

While Grimm's case is an example of a transgender student challenging what he views as an oppressive school policy, the Pennsylvania case is an example of the main other type of lawsuit in this area: one brought by students claiming that pro-transgender school policies harm their privacy to use facilities among peers of their same birth gender.

"Sex in federal law has always referred to the biological difference between men and women," said Christiana Holcomb, a lawyer with Alliance Defending Freedom, a Scottsdale, Ariz.-based legal organization that backs several student privacy lawsuits around the country. "Those courts that have ruled to the contrary are out of step with the plain meaning of Title IX."

Holcomb and the ADF are representing four students in the Boyertown district who object to a policy, adopted during the 2016-17 school year, of allowing transgender students to use facilities consistent with their gender identity.

In court papers, the ADF argued that the school district's policy favored "a subjective continuum of genders" that "eliminates the law's longstanding respect for the anatomical differences between the sexes."

"We're trying to protect the privacy rights of every student, including transgender students and our clients," said Holcomb. "School districts have a duty to protect the privacy and dignity of everyone in their schools."

Mara Keisling, the executive director of the National Center for Transgender Equality, an advocacy group based in Washington, said "the trends in the courts are absolutely clear: They are ruling again and again with us."

"School districts have to deal with the reality that trans students exist," she said. "They have to operate within the reality that there is a Title IX, and it's very, very clear based on decision after decision that trans people are covered by it. Most schools are doing the right thing."

Published in Print: June 6, 2018, as Courts Take Expansive View In Transgender-Rights Cases

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Courts Take Expansive View in Transgender-Rights Cases

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Two recent federal court rulings add to the growing body of decisions that find legal protections for transgender students in federal antidiscrimination laws and that run counter to the views emerging from President Donald Trump's administration on the issue.