Supreme Court rejects appeal to limit transgender students
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court declined Monday to take up an appeal from parents in Oregon who want to prevent transgender students from using locker rooms and bathrooms of the gender with which they identify, rather than their sex assigned at birth.
The case came from a school district near Salem, Oregon’s capital city. The federal appeals court in San Francisco had upheld a Dallas, Oregon, school district policy that allows transgender students to use bathrooms and locker rooms that align with their gender identity.
Parents sued over the policy in 2017, saying it caused embarrassment and stress.
A lower court refused to block the policy and the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed that ruling, writing that the school district did not violate students’ constitutional rights or a law that protects people from discrimination based on sex in education programs.
Similar lawsuits have been dismissed by courts in other parts of the country.
High court to hear Medicaid work requirement appeals
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — The U.S. Supreme Court will review a federal appeals court ruling that struck down work requirements for Medicaid services in Arkansas and New Hampshire.
The court on Friday agreed to the requests and consolidated the two cases.
“I am grateful the U.S. Supreme Court will weigh the merits of this case,” Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson said in a statement. “The ability of a state to conduct Medicaid demonstration projects like Arkansas Works is of national significance. It has always been our goal to provide healthcare to an expanded population of Arkansans while also providing tools for them to achieve economic stability and independence.”
National Health Law Program Legal Director Jane Perkins, one of the attorneys who represented Medicaid recipients, predicted the high court will uphold a February ruling by a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. The judge’s ruled unanimously that the goal of Medicaid is to provide health care coverage and that work requirements lack specific legal authorization.
“While we firmly believe that these petitions did not merit review, we are confident that the Supreme Court will ultimately conclude that these agency actions were not legal,” Perkins told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
