South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson says the Supreme Court should use United States v. Skrmetti decision as basis to roll back Fourth Circuit's ruling. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
The case brings biology-based bathroom rules for students back before the nation’s highest court, just months after the Supreme Court upheld a state ban on gender transition treatments for minors — a decision South Carolina says should guide lower courts.
"It underlines the importance of states' ability to protect their own students and their own constituencies within their states," Wilson said. "This is one of the issues that was brought up in the Skrmetti decision."
The Fourth Circuit ruled last month that the student, identified in court documents as "John Doe," be allowed an exception to use the boys’ restroom pending the lawsuit. The decision relies heavily on Grimm v. Gloucester County School Board, where the court held that banning a transgender boy from using the boys' restroom violated the Equal Protection Clause and Title IX.
But South Carolina officials argue that Grimm is an outdated "discredited outlier" and that federal courts should follow the United States v. Skrmetti decision, since "the Plaintiffs are unlikely ultimately to prevail," according to the emergency injunction. In the Skrmetti decision, the justices ruled in favor of Tennessee's ban on medical gender transition procedures for minors.
SCOTUS RULES ON STATE BAN ON GENDER TRANSITION 'TREATMENTS' FOR MINORS IN LANDMARK CASE
South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson and state officials filed an emergency injunction asking the Supreme Court to weigh in on a lower court's ruling allowing one transgender boy to use the mens restroom in the Berkeley County School District. (Tracy Glantz/The State/Tribune News Service; Sara D. Davis/Stringer)
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Doe's attorney, Alexandra Zoe Brodsky, told Fox News Digital in a statement that "South Carolina wants the Supreme Court to take the extraordinary remedy of intervening in an ongoing lower court appeal – all because the state wants to stop one ninth grader from using boys’ restrooms while that appeal proceeds."
"This case does not present the sort of emergency that would justify such intervention," the statement continued. "As the Chief Judge of the Fourth Circuit recently observed, 'there’s zero evidence that [our client’s] use of boys’ restrooms presents even a remote possibility of harm to anyone. But the evidence of state hostility toward him overwhelms.’ Indeed, no classmate has ever complained about our client using boys’ restrooms. Yet South Carolina is rushing to the Supreme Court to get a permission slip to subject him to state-mandated discrimination at school, including the school discipline that drove him out of middle school last year. The Supreme Court should deny South Carolina’s unusual request."
The Supreme Court could issue an emergency response as early as Friday. The Court’s decision could come without full briefing or oral argument, as is typical of rulings made outside the high court's normal, full process.
Jamie Joseph is a U.S. Politics reporter for Fox News Digital covering transgender and culture issues, the Departments of Education and Health and Human Services, and stateside legislative developments.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/red-state-argues-trans-bathroom-case-death-knell-left-wing-agenda