Emerging Leader Fellow Lizzy Wingfield’s legal expertise is cited by Lancaster Online as it examines the potential legal ramifications of a school board’s decision to recommend students use restrooms based on their biological sex.
The Eastern Lancaster County school board approved a new policy Monday night that calls for “what will most likely be a multimillion-dollar project replacing the boys and girls restrooms and locker rooms with secure, single-user, gender-neutral facilities districtwide,” LNP’s Alex Geli reported. But it also approved an addendum to that policy that reads: “We recommend that (wherever) we cannot provide private (single-user) facilities when changing or using the bathroom facilities, the students are to use the facilities based on their biological sex. Anywhere within the district that our system has not caught up with the renovations this will be in effect.” The vote came after several months of debate about how to accommodate a transgender student who identifies as male. Some district residents expressed dismay that the student had been permitted to use the boys’ restrooms and locker room at Garden Spot High School.
And just like that, the Elanco school board invited a lawsuit. Its decision was so glaringly an invitation to litigation it should have come with an RSVP card.
