Talk:G.G. v. Gloucester County School Board

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 29 March 2021 and 7 June 2021. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Koolaid1018.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 21:32, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

G. G. v. Gloucester County School Board


Starting in 2010, OCR brought a number of successful enforcement actions under Title IX on behalf of students who were subject to harassment or discrimination on the basis of their gender identity, gender expression, or failure to conform to gender stereotypes. Eight of the cases were settled in favor of the students. Several private lawsuits were brought as well on similar grounds. In 2016, the Fourth Circuit became the first Court of Appeals to rule on the scope of Title IX as applied to transgender students, in the case of Virginia high school student Gavin Grimm (G.G. v. Gloucester County School Board).

Grimm came out as a transgender boy while a student at Gloucester High School in Virginia. After he began using male facilities, the Gloucester County School Board passed a policy resolution requiring that access to changing rooms and bathrooms "shall be limited to the corresponding biological genders, and students with gender identity issues shall be provided an alternative appropriate private facility". At the school board meeting, speakers addressing the board called Grimm a "freak" and compared him to a dog. When he refused to use the girls' bathroom, Grimm was offered the use of some broom closets that had been retrofitted into unisex bathrooms. Grimm refused to use those as well, opting to use a bathroom in the school nurse's office.

Grimm obtained legal representation from the American Civil Liberties Union, sued the school under Title IX and referred the case to the DOJ. The federal government agreed to intervene in the case on Grimm's behalf, writing to the court that Title IX "prohibits discrimination based on sex, including gender identity, transgender status, and nonconformity to sex stereotypes".

Judge Robert G. Doumar of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia dismissed Grimm's Title IX claim and denied his request for an injunction. In his ruling, Judge Doumar held that Title IX's operative provision should be read narrowly to cover discrimination on the basis of genetic "sex" only, and not gender identity or expression. During the proceedings in the District Court, Judge Doumar made a number of idiosyncratic statements from the bench, saying that being transgender is a "mental disorder", delivering off-topic criticism of the federal government on the issues of marijuana enforcement and sanctuary cities, and explaining that Grimm is a female who "wants to be male". In reviewing the case, the Court of Appeals criticized Judge Doumar's conduct in the courtroom, writing that his "extraneous remarks [and] suppositions ... marred the hearing".

Grimm appealed to the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals. On April 19, 2016, a three-judge panel of that court overturned Judge Doumar's decision with respect to Title IX. In their ruling, two of the three panel members agreed with the government's position that the regulation governing sex-segregated facilities is ambiguous, and held that its interpretation of this regulation is entitled to "deference and is to be accorded controlling weight" under Chevron U.S.A., Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc. and Auer v. Robbins. Accordingly, the Court of Appeals sent the case back to the District Court for further proceedings granting deference to DOE's interpretation of the Title IX regulation. The school board moved for rehearing en banc, but the Fourth Circuit declined to rehear the case. On June 23, Judge Doumar issued a preliminary injunction in Grimm's favor.

The Supreme Court stayed the Circuit Court's decision in August 2016, and in October 2016, it agreed to take up the case. The Court reversed its decision to hear the case on March 6, 2017, and vacated the judgment in Grimm's favor citing the Trump administration's withdrawal of the DOE interpretation of the Title IX regulation to which the Fourth Circuit had granted deference.

Before being vacated by the Supreme Court, the ruling by the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals had controlling status in federal courts located in the states served by the Fourth Circuit – Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina – and was expected to influence the litigation over North Carolina's anti-LGBT law, the Public Facilities Privacy & Security Act. The Fourth Circuit ruling would have served as controlling precedent in the North Carolina litigation with respect to Title IX only – and not with respect to Title VII claims (discrimination in the employment context). The two statutes are closely linked, however: according to Duke University School of Law professor Katharine T. Bartlett, "it would be inconceivable [that courts] would decide that transgender bias is sex discrimination under Title IX, but not under Title VII."

On May 22, 2018 U.S. District Judge Arenda Wright Allen of the U.S. District Court of the Eastern District of Virginia denied the Gloucester County School Board's motion to dismiss the case, and ruled that Grimm had a valid claim of discrimination under Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, as well as the U.S. Constitution's equal protection clause.

Renaming the article
Should we now rename the article according to the final version of the case, replacing “G.G.” With “Grimm”? Antinoos69 (talk) 09:01, 1 July 2021 (UTC)


 * I would keep the title because that's the name of the case often used in court documents, as Grimm didn't become an adult until 2017. JohnAdams1800 (talk) 15:12, 7 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Keep per WP:COMMONNAME. The bulk of the case was handled while Grimm was a minor, so that's how it will generally be remembered. M asem (t) 15:33, 7 January 2024 (UTC)