Justice Department sues Virginia school board for religious discrimination in bathroom policy
Caroline MolloyThe U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) filed legal action Dec. 8 against the Loudoun County School Board in Virginia, accusing the district of violating the constitutional rights of two Christian high school male students who were suspended after objecting to a female student using the boys’ locker room.
In a Dec. 8 announcement, the DOJ said the Loudoun County district unlawfully applied “Policy 8040,” which allows students to use facilities based on “gender identity” rather than sex. The department said the district denied the boys equal protection under the Fourteenth Amendment and forced the Christian students to act against their religious beliefs.
“Loudoun County’s decision to advance and promote gender ideology tramples on the rights of religious students who cannot embrace ideas that deny biological reality,” Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon of the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division wrote in the release.
The DOJ is seeking to intervene in S.W. et al. v. Loudoun County School Board, which is pending in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia. The suit argues the district imposed its preferred “gender identity” viewpoint on all students, punished dissent grounded in religious belief, and misapplied the policy in conflict with the Constitution.
According to the DOJ, the incident began at Stone Bridge High School when a female student entered the boys’ locker room and secretly recorded male students expressing discomfort with her presence. As CatholicVote previously reported, the boys can be heard on the recording saying, “I’m so uncomfortable with a girl,” “Female, bro,” and “Why is there a girl?”
The DOJ said two of the boys recorded in the video are Christian, and their beliefs require them to use sex-segregated facilities.
The female student, who had used the boys’ locker room since 2023, later filed a Title IX complaint using the video as evidence. The district suspended both Christian students for 10 days, labeling their comments as “sex-based discrimination” and “sexual harassment” and claiming that they violated Policy 8040, according to the DOJ.
