An Ohio case around a transgender student in Tipp City using bathrooms that matched her gender identity was rendered moot by a federal appeals court due to the state’s bathroom ban. However, the ACLU of Ohio still sees the majority opinion as a win.
In 2022, a group of Ohio parents sued Bethel Local School District, which is located north of Dayton. The parents claimed the school district’s trans-inclusive bathroom policy was a violation of their religious freedom and parental rights.
One year later, a lower federal district court found that the parents’ claims were invalid because the high school had since installed a single-occupancy bathroom that anyone could use. If a cisgender girl was uncomfortable with a trans girl using the communal bathroom, the cisgender student could instead use the other bathroom.
The parents appealed to the U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, which declared the case moot on Aug. 26 because the trans student has since left the district and the state bathroom ban was signed into law in November 2024.
However, Circuit Judges R. Guy Cole Jr. and Karen Nelson Moore, both appointees of former President Bill Clinton, and Judge Joan Larsen, an appointee of President Donald Trump, wrote in their opinions that if Ohio Republicans had not passed the bathroom ban the court would have unanimously found Bethel Local School District’s bathroom policy constitutional.
“We hold that, when it was in effect, the policy was constitutional so long as it was rationally related to a legitimate government purpose,” Cole and Moore wrote.
Larsen wrote a separate opinion, agreeing with the ruling but thought Cole and Moore interpreted the recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Mahmoud v. Taylor “narrowly.” She thinks Mahmoud could be interpreted as to extend into the school environment.
“All sorts of non-curricular school rules—which aren’t clearly ‘educational’—can interfere with parents’ religious upbringing of their children,” Larsen wrote. “Whether a policy applies in the school classroom, lunchroom, or restroom, it may still substantially interfere with parents’ rights to instill in their children the principles of their faith.”
The Supreme Court ruled in the Mahmoud case that districts must allow parents to opt their children out of curriculum that could violate their religious freedom. While there is concern online that the SCOTUS case could extend to the school environment itself, in addition to instructional content, ACLU of Ohio Managing Legal Director David Carey said this ruling from the Sixth Circuit shows that Mahmoud might not extend that far.
“It’s not clear how far Mahmoud goes,” he said. “ Even if you are to assume that Mahmoud extends to school conditions like restroom use, [Trump appointee] Judge Larsen agreed [saying], ‘ Look, they offered an opt out, so what are you complaining about?’”
The ACLU of Ohio intervened in the lawsuit in 2023. The opinion is “bittersweet” now that the bathroom ban is passed, but it’s still an important win to celebrate even if it’s small, Carey said.
“It’s an important precedent to establish that nobody has the constitutional right to compel discrimination against transgender students,” he said. 🔥
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