A federal judge has ruled in favor of a transgender student in Hanover County who was prevented from playing on her school’s girls’ tennis team because of her gender identity.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia, which filed a lawsuit last month on behalf of the 11-year-old middle school student who is identified as “Janie Doe,” notes on its website that U.S. District Court Judge M. Hannah Lauck issued her ruling on Aug. 16.
Lauck, according to the ACLU of Virginia, found the Hanover County School Board “likely violated Title IX and the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution” when it prevented the student from joining her school’s tennis team in 2023.
“Janie has established that the board excluded her, on the basis of sex, from participating in an education program when it denied her application to try out for (and if selected, to participate on) her school’s girls’ tennis team,” wrote Lauck.
The ACLU of Virginia notes Lauck added the school board’s actions “contravene the strong public interest in educational institutions being free of discrimination of all kinds.”
The lawsuit that the ACLU of Virginia and WilmerHale, a Washington-based law firm, filed in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia in Richmond notes the school board voted not to allow Doe to “participate in” the girls’ tennis team, even though “she successfully qualified during tryouts, and her parents provided documentation requested by the school board to establish her eligibility.”
“At the heart of this case is an 11-year-old who loves tennis and just wants to try out with her friends for the team she already made last year,” said ACLU of Virginia Senior Transgender Rights Attorney Wyatt Rolla on Monday in a press release. “By singling out a transgender student in their district, the adults on the Hanover County School Board bullied Janie and violated nondiscrimination protections that are there to make sure public schools include all students.”
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