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A Virginia school board has agreed to pay out $1.3million settlement to a transgender student who sued his high school after being denied access to the men’s bathroom. The Student, Gavin Grimm, first began his legal battle six years ago in a case that nearly reached the Supreme Court.
The battle began in 2014, while Grimm was still a sophomore at a Gloucester County high school. After coming out and beginning his transition, Grimm began to use his school’s men’s restroom and did so without issue until an anonymous complaint was submitted to the Gloucester County School Board (School Board). The School Board then voted in December 2014 to institute a policy restricting use of restrooms, and only allowing students to use facilities corresponding to their “biological sex”. The School Board’s decision immediately caused controversy, sparking such intense backlash from parents that the School Board backtracked and reserved a restroom exclusively for Grimm.
However, to Grimm this was far from a fair compromise. Speaking on his experience this June Grimm said, “[b]eing forced to use the nurse’s room, a private bathroom, and the girl’s room was humiliating for me . . . [h]aving to go out-of-the-way bathrooms severely interfered with my education.
In June of 2015, Grimm filed suit against the School Board for discrimination, claiming that by refusing to allow him to use a restroom that confirmed with his gender identity, the School Board had violated the Equal Protection Clause and Title IX of the U.S. Education Amendments of 1972.
Grimm was represented by Josh Block of the American Civil Liberties Unions, and the suit immediately drew national support from LGBT advocates, as well as the Obama administration. Less than a month after Grimm’s initial filing, The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) backed Grimm, citing guidance given by the department to schools on accommodating transgender students.
Grimm’s suit began to work its way through the courts. Initially the School Board successfully filed a motion to dismiss Grimm’s Title IX complaint; this decision was then reversed by Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, who stated that Grimm had a valid Title IX complaint and citing the DOJ guidance on transgender students. Following this Grimm’s case was remanded back to the District Court, which ruled in June of 2016 that the School Board must let Grimm use men’s restrooms and facilities.
However, the court drama wasn’t over yet, soon after the District Court’s ruling the School Board appealed to the Supreme Court to review the case. Although the Supreme Court agreed to hear the case and scheduled arguments for March of 2017, that all changed after Donald Trump’s election.
In February 2017 the Trump administration revoked the DOJ guidance on transgender students. The Supreme Court subsequently vacated its decision to hear Grimm’s case as the Circuit Court’s upholding of Grimm’s Title IX complaint had been predicated on the now repealed DOJ guidance. The case was remanded to the 4th Circuit which then remanded it back to the District Court.
Making his way back through the courts Grimm was again victorious, with the District Court ruling in his favor on August 9, 2019. After yet another appeal by the School Board, The 4th Circuit Court affirmed the District Court’s ruling in August of 2020. Despite Grimm’s victories the School Board appealed to the Supreme Court for a Second time, who declined to hear the case on June 28, 2021.
While the Supreme Court’s decision not to hear the case does not establish a precedent or indicate agreement with the Circuit Court’s decision, it marked the proverbial end of the road for the Gloucester County School Board in Court.
Left with no further options to pursue the legal battle, the School Board agreed this week to settle the case and pay Grimm $1.3million. A spokeswoman acknowledged that the School Board had agreed to pay Grimm’s attorneys’ fees, but made no further comments.
In a statement Grimm’s lawyer said that the settlement in combination with the Supreme Court’s decision to let the Circuit Court’s ruling stand meant that Grimm had been “fully vindicated.”
In his own statement Grimm added, “[r]ather than allow a child equal access to a safe school environment, the Gloucester School Board decided to fight this child for five years in a costly legal battle that they lost […] I hope that this outcome sends a strong message to other school systems, that discrimination is an expensive losing battle.”
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