Gavin Grimm said Thursday that hopefully other school boards will learn "discrimination is an expensive losing battle" after the Gloucester County School Board agreed to pay $1.3 million after losing a case over its policy to ban transgender students from using the bathroom that matched their gender identity. File Photo by Bryan R. Smith/UPI |
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Aug. 27 (UPI) -- The Gloucester County School Board said it will pay the legal fees of former transgender student Gavin Grimm who sued it years ago over its policy that denied him the ability to use the restroom that corresponded with his gender identity, according to his legal representation.
The American Civil Liberties Union said the school board told the court in a filing on Thursday that it will not oppose Gavin's petition and would pay $1.3 million to cover his legal fees and costs.
"We are glad that this long litigation is finally over and that Gavin has been fully vindicated by the courts, but it should not have taken over six years of expensive litigation to get to this point," Josh Block, Grimm's lawyer and senior staff attorney with the ACLU, said in a statement.
The ACLU sued the school board on Grimm's behalf in 2015 after it adopted a policy to prevent children "with gender identity issues" from using the restroom that correlated with their gender identity and instructed them to instead use a private facility.
The then-15-year-old Grimm was required to use separate restrooms that no other student used, the ACLU said, describing the policy as "degrading and stigmatizing."
The board's decision to pay ACLU's legal fees comes after the Supreme Court in June declined to review a lower court's ruling that prevented the school board from reinstating its bathroom policy for transgendered students.
"Rather than allow a child equal access to a safe school environment, the Gloucester school board decided to fight this child for five years in a costly legal battle that they lost," Grimm said. "I hope that this outcome sends a strong message to other school systems that discrimination is an expensive losing battle."
ACLU announced the school boards decision amid an onslaught of states proposing bills that opponents say target the LGBTQ community.
According to Human Rights Campaign, the largest LGBTQ advocacy group in the United States, more than 250 such bills have been introduced by states across the country this year.
