SCOTUS Rejects Appeal To Case That Set Precedent For Fourth Circuit Court’s Ruling On Transgender Rights

This is a major setback for supporters of North Carolina’s hate law:

The Supreme Court announced Monday, over the dissent of one conservative justice, that it will not review a legal precedent key to an appeals court ruling last month requiring public schools to allow transgender students to use bathrooms corresponding to their gender identity.

The justices declined to take up a student debt-collection case that asked the court to overrule a 1997 precedent, Auer v. Robbins, that said the judicial branch should defer to a federal agency’s interpretation of its own regulations.

That case is the main one a 4th Circuit Court of Appeals panel relied on when it upheld the right of a transgender boy to use the boys’ bathrooms at a Virginia high school. There is no federal regulation specifically on the point, but the Education Department has issued guidance indicating that such treatment is required by the sex-discrimination prohibition in Title IX on schools receiving federal funds.