Dive Brief:

• Virginia's Gloucester County School Board plans to appeal a decision made last month in favor of a transgender student's right to use the bathroom of his choice, CNN reports.
• Federal Judge Wright Allen ruled in favor of Gavin Grimm, now graduated, who brought the case four years ago, on the grounds that the school board had discriminated under the Constitution's equal protection clause and Title IX.
• The case is among the highest-profile arguments involving transgender students' rights to use the bathroom of their choice, and this appeal puts it back on track to return to the U.S. Supreme Court, which previously dismissed it back to the lower courts.

Dive Insight:

That the Gloucester County School Board once again appealed the case isn't unexpected. It also isn't the only case to be appealed as far as the Supreme Court, as one involving Wisconsin's Kenosha Unified School District is also pending. It seems inevitable that the court will ultimately have to clarify transgender students' bathroom rights under Title IX or the U.S. Constitution sooner or later.

In December 2015, the Obama-era U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights had reached a resolution agreement with Illinois' Palatine High School District 211 over the rights of a transgender female to use the girls' locker room, and the department later issued further guidance on transgender students' rights. That, however, was rescinded by the Trump administration, despite reported pushback from U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos. This back-and-forth swing on policy alone illustrates the need for the high court to step in.