Roe v. Critchfield
Description: Activists are challenging Idaho’s law that protects the privacy, safety, and dignity of all K-12 students in public school’s locker rooms, showers, restrooms, and overnight stays.
Idaho defends law that protects student privacy in restrooms, locker rooms, overnight stays, and showers
WHO: Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys
WHAT: Available for media interviews following oral arguments in Roe v. Critchfield
WHEN: Immediately following hearing, which begins at 9:30 a.m. PDT, Thursday, May 9
WHERE: U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, Richard H. Chambers Courthouse, 125 S. Grand Ave., Pasadena. To schedule an interview, contact ADF Media Relations Specialist Hattie Troutman at (771) 200-7630.
PASADENA, Calif. – Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys will be available for media interviews following oral arguments Thursday at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit in Roe v. Critchfield. Idaho Attorney General Raúl Labrador, assisted by attorneys from Alliance Defending Freedom, filed a brief in December urging the court to uphold a district court decision that allowed Idaho to protect the privacy, safety, and dignity of all K-12 students in public school’s locker rooms, showers, restrooms, and overnight stays.
Last March, Idaho enacted a law protecting children’s privacy by ensuring that sex-specific facilities in K-12 public schools like showers, locker rooms, restrooms, and overnight accommodations remained sex-specific, while also allowing single-user facilities. But activists sued Idaho State Superintendent of Public Instruction Debbie Critchfield and the state board of education in July demanding that K-12 public schools force girls to share private spaces with males and vice-versa. After a lower court upheld Idaho’s common-sense law, the activists appealed, and the 9th Circuit granted them an injunction pending appeal, halting enforcement of the law.
“Idaho’s law protects every student’s dignity and worth by respecting their privacy and safety in locker rooms, showers, restrooms, and overnight stays,” said ADF Senior Counsel Erin Hawley, vice president of the ADF Center for Life and Regulatory Practice, who will argue virtually before the court. “Girls and boys each deserve a private space to shower, undress, use the restroom, and sleep, and they shouldn’t have to worry about sharing these spaces with a member of the opposite sex. Girls and boys are biologically different, and we are urging the court to uphold Idaho’s law that recognizes this truth and accommodates each unique student.”
In January, 24 states and multiple advocacy groups united to support Idaho’s law through several friend-of-the-court briefs.
Alliance Defending Freedom is an alliance-building, non-profit legal organization committed to protecting religious freedom, free speech, parental rights, and the sanctity of life.
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ABOUT Erin Morrow Hawley
Erin Morrow Hawley serves as senior counsel and vice president of the Center for Life and regulatory practice at Alliance Defending Freedom. Before joining ADF, Hawley practiced appellate law at Kirkland and Ellis LLP, Bancroft LLP, and King & Spalding LLP. Hawley has litigated extensively before the U.S. Supreme Court as well as numerous federal courts of appeals and state courts of last resort. She also worked at the U.S. Department of Justice, serving as counsel to Attorney General Michael Mukasey. As an academic, Hawley served as an associate professor of law at the University of Missouri and she also taught constitutional law as a senior fellow at the Kinder Institute for Constitutional Democracy. Hawley is a former law clerk to U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John G. Roberts and Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit. Hawley received her bachelor’s degree in Animal Science from Texas A&M University and her law degree from Yale Law School where she served as a Coker Fellow in Constitutional Law and on the Yale Law Journal. She is an active member of the Missouri and District of Columbia bars and is admitted to practice before the U.S. Supreme Court and various federal courts of appeals.
ABOUT John Bursch
John Bursch is senior counsel and vice president of appellate advocacy with Alliance Defending Freedom. Bursch has argued 12 U.S. Supreme Court cases and more than 30 state supreme court cases since 2011, and a recent study concluded that among all frequent Supreme Court advocates who did not work for the federal government, he had the 3rd highest success rate for persuading justices to adopt his legal position. Bursch served as solicitor general for the state of Michigan from 2011-2013. He has argued multiple Michigan Supreme Court cases in eight of the last ten terms and has successfully litigated hundreds of matters nationwide, including six with at least $1 billion at stake. As part of his private firm, Bursch Law PLLC, he has represented Fortune 500 companies, foreign and domestic governments, top public officials, and industry associations in high-profile cases, primarily on appeal. He received his J.D. magna cum laude in 1997 from the University of Minnesota Law School and is admitted to practice in numerous federal district and appellate courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court.