The Justice Department announced today that it filed legal action against the Loudoun County (Va.) School Board (Loudoun County) for its denial of equal protection based on religion. The suit alleges that Loudoun County applied Policy 8040, which requires students and faculty to accept and promote gender ideology, to two Christian, male students in violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

“Students do not shed their First Amendment rights at the schoolhouse gate,” said Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. “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.”

Policy 8040 requires all students, regardless of their religious beliefs, to adopt the Loudoun County School Board’s understanding of “gender identity” — including its practical application that affects all students’ use of intimate spaces, such as bathrooms and changing facilities. At Stone Bridge High School, a female student took advantage of this policy, entered the boys’ locker room, and recorded audio and video of the boys in that locker room. Several boys spoke out about this incident, including two Christian, male students whose religious beliefs require them to use biologically accurate pronouns and use sex-segregated facilities.

Loudoun County determined that these Christian, male students’ religious practice violated school policy, recasting constitutionally protected activity as “sex-based discrimination” and “sexual harassment.” As punishment, Loudoun County suspended the boys for ten days and ordered them to submit to a “Comprehensive Student Support Plan” that further violates the boys’ right to free exercise of religion at school.

The Department’s motion to intervene in S.W. et al. v. Loudoun County School Board is pending before the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia.