(PALATINE) A transgender high school student’s request to share the locker room of the gender the student identifies with has led to a federal complaint against a northwest suburban school district, which was ordered to grant the student unrestricted access but is refusing.
Complying with the ruling of the Office of Civil Rights of the U.S. Department of Education would be violating the privacy rights of its other students, officials of Township High School District 211 in Palatine, said at a news conference Monday, the Chicago Sun-Times is reporting.
“This is not about discrimination in any way. This is about protecting student privacy. They are asking us to have opposite-sex students in the same open area of the locker room,” Supt. Daniel E. Cates said.
U.S. Education Department officials could not be reached for response on Monday.
“We fully support our transgender students. The district has been sensitive. We developed a number of options. The Office of Civil Rights rejected any option other than unrestricted access,” Cates said. “We will not adopt this requirement as dictated by OCR. The principles we stand on are firm.”
District officials refused to identify the student, the gender the student identifies with or which of the district’s high schools the student attends.
District 211 serves nearly 12,500 students in five high schools and two alternative high schools, according to the district’s website. It is headquartered in Palatine, and serves students from Palatine, Hoffman Estates, Inverness and Schaumburg, as well as parts of seven other northwestern suburbs.
The district said it accommodates its transgender students in many ways. It changes names and gender on school records, allows them to join sports teams of their chosen gender and to use bathrooms of their chosen gender because stalls offer privacy.
The district offers transgender students the use of private locker room space for changing during physical education classes and after-school activities. The student’s family filed the Office of Civil Rights complaint in spring 2014, rejecting that option and seeking unrestricted locker room access.
The Office of Civil Rights ruled transgender students should be granted such access. The office has called the district’s decision not to allow it inadequate and discriminatory, threatening the district with litigation and enforcement action, including potential loss of federal education funding if it does not comply. Palatine received $6 million in federal funding last year.
The district is adamant it will fight the ruling.
“Across the state and across the nation, this is an emerging issue for schools,” said Cates, criticizing the Department of Education for drawing “a hard line in the sand,” rather than working collectively with districts nationwide to find a solution that would accommodate all students.
Students in his district are fairly open-minded, Cates said. And while students may have a wide range of viewpoints on the issue, administrators are acting not based on students’ or parents’ viewpoints but the district’s long-standing duty to protect each student’s privacy, he said.
“Our students are wonderfully accepting people. They are more open in celebrating differences than any generation I’ve seen,” Cates said. “The student will continue to be allowed to change in private, as any students can if they desire. This matter is not about a single student. Our students do not attend school in government offices in Washington, D.C. We are very hopeful to continue those discussions and that reasonableness will prevail.”
