BANGOR, Maine — A lawsuit over a transgender student’s use of the girls’ bathroom at an Orono elementary school may go forward after a Superior Court justice dismissed the most controversial count.

Justice William Anderson earlier this month dismissed the part of the lawsuit that claimed administrators at the Asa Adams School were obligated under the Maine Human Rights Act to allow the child to use the girls’ bathroom rather than a restroom for staff.

A claim that the school discriminated against the transgender student and another seeking damages may go forward, Anderson said in a 10-page ruling dated April 1.

“ .. [T]his ‘accommodation’ claim would impose upon Superintendent [Kelly ] Clenchy and the various school entities defending this suit an obligation to accommodate [the child’s] transgender status by allowing her to continue using the girls’ bathrooms consistent with her gender identity,” the judge wrote. “Neither the language of the [Maine Human Rights Act], the language of the [Maine Human Rights Commission’s] own internal regulations, nor prevailing case law interpreting the Civil Rights Act requires this type of accommodation.”

Anderson has not set a trial date in the case.

The lawsuit was filed in Penobscot County Superior Court by the Maine Human Rights Commission and the student’s parents in June 2009 after the MHRC unanimously ruled in the child’s favor.

Defendants in the lawsuit include Clenchy, the former superintendent of the Orono School District, now Riverside RSU 26, and officials at Asa Adams School.

Reprinted with permission from the Bangor Daily News.

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