Media Coverage
Source: The Florida Times Union (Jacksonville)
Media Coverage
Press Contacts: Erik Cummins, Matt Hyams, Olivia Thomas
06.28.17
JACKSONVILLE – Pillsbury joined Lambda Legal today as co-counsel in filing a federal discrimination lawsuit in the Middle District of Florida against the St. Johns County School Board in St. Augustine, Florida, near Jacksonville, on behalf of a 16-year-old boy who is being denied access to the boys’ restroom because he is transgender.
The lawsuit was filed on behalf of Nease High School junior Drew Adams and his mother Erica Adams Kasper. In the complaint, Pillsbury and Lambda Legal argue that St. Johns County School Board’s discriminatory restroom policy sends a purposeful message that transgender students in the school district are undeserving of the privacy, respect, and protections afforded to other students.
The complaint argues that the school district’s policy to exclude transgender students from the restrooms that match their gender identity is unconstitutional because it discriminates based on sex in violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, and Title IX of the 1972 Education Amendments Act.
Pillsbury and Lambda Legal will soon file a motion for preliminary injunction to seek relief from the school’s discriminatory policy.
Tara Borelli, Paul Castillo and Omar Gonzalez-Pagan are handling the matter for Lambda Legal. Pillsbury’s Jennifer Altman, Shani Rivaux, Aryeh Kaplan, Richard Segal, Nathaniel Smith, Robert Boyd and William Miller are serving as co-counsel, along with Kirsten Doolittle of Jacksonville’s Law Office of Kirsten Doolittle, P.A.
Read the complaint here.