Publication Sneak Peek: School Law Review

This segment features content from other AAEA publications. School Law Review is a quarterly publication available to subscribing districts. The following excerpt comes from the December 2024 issue.

The U.S. Supreme Court’s upcoming term is likely to include decisions on a number of issues that may have significant implications for school districts. The Court has already agreed to hear a major case out of Tennessee about whether states may prohibit medical treatments such as puberty blockers and hormone therapy if they are meant to help transgender minors transition to a gender identity that is inconsistent with their sex assigned at birth. Some 24 other states have similar laws. The Tennessee case was filed by three transgender teenagers who have to travel to other states for gender-affirming care. The students claim the Tennessee law violates the 14th Amendment’s equal-protection clause. The Biden administration intervened in the case in order to support the teenagers’ arguments.

A federal district court enjoined enforcement of the law but the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed, rejecting the teenagers’ argument that transgender status was a “suspect classification” which entitled them to claim that any laws passed by the state which harmed them would be subject to strict scrutiny, which is a markedly higher level of constitutional scrutiny used by federal courts in the decisional process. The Sixth Circuit instead upheld the Tennessee ban on certain transgender care under a “rational basis” test and concluded that the state law was rationally related to the state’s interest in taking a cautious approach to irreversible medical treatments of minors.

The Supreme Court agreed to hear the teenagers’ appeal on the equal-protection question on whether the Tennessee law should be decided on strict constitutional scrutiny, which would likely lead to a ruling in favor of the teenagers. The Court’s resolution of this question could have an important impact -- far beyond the health-care context -- on school transgender issues, such as controversies over restrooms, locker rooms, and athletic participation.

The Supreme Court has also agreed to hear a Wisconsin telecom provider’s appeal in a case that could create uncertainty about the future of E-rate subsidies for schools. This case involves a telecom provider facing a civil trial under a federal fraud statute for allegedly overcharging schools under the subsidy program. The legal question in this appeal is whether the E-rate program is sufficiently tied to the federal government to come under the False Claims Act, a more than century-old statute designed to root out fraud in federal contracting. The company argued that the False Claims Act does not apply to the private money that telecom providers contribute to the Universal Service Fund (USF). A related case involves a decision by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, which held that the USF’s funding mechanism was unconstitutional, which has caused substantial alarm in the school tech community and uncertainty about schools’ receipt of E-rate subsidies.

Another case the Court will hear this term involves a Texas law requiring age verification for anyone accessing certain websites offering sexual material harmful to minors. Opponents of the law argued that it infringes on the free-speech rights of adults, but the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the law. The Court’s decision may have an adverse impact on efforts in Texas and other states to restrict school and library books deemed sexually explicit or otherwise harmful to minors.

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