62 | Inside the Courtroom: The BPJ v West Virginia Oral Arguments

It’s time to cover the oral arguments in the transgender student athlete cases! Which means we need some expert guidance, and who better to join us than Dr. Suzanne Eckes? This is one we’ve talked about before, but can states prohibit transgender girls from playing on the girls team? We first covered BPJ v. West Virginia in episode 57. In that case, Becky Pepper-Jackson, a transgender girl, challenged West Virginia’s law that defined athletic teams based on biological sex assigned at birth. Well, she won at the lower court, but the Supreme Court agreed to hear the case along with another transgender student athlete case, Little v. Hecox, which involved a similar law and situation out of Idaho. So now the nine justices of the Supreme Court have to grapple with the question of whether Title IX or the Equal Protection Clause prohibit states from having sex-separated sports teams based on biological sex, even where as both Becky and Hecox argue, they have no biological advantage as compared to cisgender girls. ---Check out our updated website (⁠www.chalkandgavel.com⁠) to sign up for our newsletter, support the show, find our teaching guide, and order some NEW MERCH.Don't forget - ⁠Chalk and Gavel was selected to record a live episode at SXSW-EDU in March.⁠ We're pumped about this one. Help us spread the word!Interested in staying up to date on education law as an educator? Check out ELA's new publication, Law and Policy in Schools, available at https://www.educationlaw.org/lapis---Keywords: transgender student athletes, Title IX, Equal Protection Clause, LGBTQ+, sex discrimination#educationlaw #k12 #podcast #ChalkandGavel #TransRights #SupremeCourt