2. Waste of time for our St. Johns County School Board to appeal Judge Timothy Corrigan's Findings of Fact and Conclusion of Law and Final Order. Cut bono? (Who benefits?)
3. I applaud and agree with retired Florida National Guard Judge Advocate General Colonel Elizabeth Masters' eloquent July 11, 2017 letter in the St. Augustine Record, "Don’t waste time, money fighting bathroom gender," stating:
"Editor: I would like school superintendent Tim Forson to allow transgender student Drew Adams to use the restroom of his choice, starting now. Please let another, wealthier, school district become the test case for the transgender restroom issue.
Mr. Adams is not bothering anyone. There are restrooms in the art class and main office for those who wish to avoid his presence.
With even the military gearing up to allow in transgender soldiers, clearly the school district is preparing to champion a losing cause. Has the school board forgotten the Webster Elementary First Amendment debacle that cost well over $100,000, not including all the outside counsel fees and costs the we paid to defend the case? Sadly I predict the county will march on stubbornly in this case, lose it or settle it belatedly, and that it will cost a lot of money to do so. The money would be better spent in the classroom.
Elizabeth Masters
St. Augustine
Elizabeth Masters is a retired colonel in the Florida National Guard Judicial Advocate General Corps and a resident of St. Augustine."
School board appeals transgender bathroom ruling for Nease student By Travis Gibson / tgibson@staugustine.com
Posted Aug 25, 2018 at 6:26 PM
Updated Aug 25, 2018 at 6:26 PM
The St. Johns County School Board filed an appeal with the U.S. Court of Appeals on Thursday, signaling a new effort to fight a federal ruling from July that allowed a transgender Nease High School student to use the boys’ restroom at school.
The July ruling by U.S. District Court Judge Timothy Corrigan enjoined the St. Johns County School Board from enforcing its policy that prohibited Drew Adams, who was born a girl and came out as a transgender boy his freshman year, from using the boys’ bathroom and required him to use gender-neutral bathrooms.
The judgment followed a February trial that came after Adams and his mother, Erica Adams Kasper, sued the St. Johns County School District over the policy. Adams underwent hormone treatment and surgery and used the boys’ restroom at the school for about six weeks until administration required him to use the gender-neutral rooms.
In his ruling, Corrigan said the law was clearly on Adams’ side.
“When confronted with something affecting our children that is new, outside of our experience, and contrary to gender norms we thought we understood, it is natural that parents want to protect their children,” he wrote. “But the evidence is that Drew Adams poses no threat to the privacy or safety of any of his fellow students. Rather, Drew Adams is just like every other student at Nease High School, a teenager coming of age in a complicated, uncertain and changing world. When it comes to his use of the bathroom, the law requires that he be treated like any other boy.”
School district officials argued that bathrooms are spaces where schools must care for students’ safety and privacy by keeping transgender students away from the bathrooms of their gender identity.
The school’s policy, Corrigan found, violated both federal Title IX education laws and Adams’ rights under the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause.
Adams just started his senior year at Nease.
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