On December 15, 2016, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit issued an order in a case related to transgender students. This case, Dodds, et. al. v. United States Department of Education, et. al., involved an appeal of a preliminary injunction which ordered an Ohio school district “to treat an eleven-year old transgender girl as a female and permit her to use the girls’ restroom.”
The District filed a motion to stay the preliminary injunction. The Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit refused to stay the preliminary injunction, arguing that “disrupting the status quo would” would cause harm to the student. The court found that the District did not make “its required showing of a likelihood of success on the merits,” and that the District’s allegations of harm did not “rise to the level of irreparable harm.” Rather, the court stated that the student would “suffer irreparable harm if prohibited from using the girls’ restroom,” and the “public interest weights [sic] strongly against the stay of the injunction.”
In summary, the motion to stay the injunction was denied and the student will be allowed to continue to use the girls’ restroom at school during the pendency of the case.
Contact Michelle Todd or Kaitlin Atlas with your transgender student inquiries.
