RICHMOND, Va. – After a federal judge blocked Hanover County Public Schools from preventing a transgender middle schooler from trying out for a sports team, finding Hanover County School Board likely violated both Title IX and the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution when it banned “Janie Doe” from the team, the ACLU of Virginia and WilmerHale voluntarily dismissed a Title IX lawsuit this week against Hanover County Public Schools.
In response to the dismissal, ACLU of Virginia Senior Transgender Rights Attorney Wyatt Rolla released the following statement:
"At the heart of this case is an 11-year-old who loves tennis and just wanted to play a sport with her friends at school. But it became so unsafe for Janie that it was no longer an option for her to see this case through to the end. Not even a federal judge ruling in her favor was enough to protect her from such serious ongoing harassment and concerns about her safety — including from the very people charged with keeping her safe at school — that Janie was forced to withdraw from Hanover County Public Schools.
“As a result, Janie is no longer a student in the district, and the counts in her complaint are now moot. We are voluntarily dismissing the lawsuit, and will be seeking attorneys’ fees on the preliminary injunction that Janie already won."
To read the judge’s ruling in Janie Doe’s favor, which found that Hanover County School Board’s actions “contravene the strong public interest in educational institutions being free of discrimination of all kinds ... including on the basis of gender identity,” see the case page here.
