Lawyers for the American Civil Liberties Union went before a federal appeals court last week in an effort to stop what they say is an unconstitutional system of sex-segregated classes at a southern Louisiana school.
The ACLU filed a federal suit last year against the Vermilion Parish school district on behalf of an unnamed parent whose daughters were placed in single-sex classes at Rene A. Rost Middle School. The group lost a round in April when a federal district court refused to grant a preliminary order blocking the practice, pending a full trial.
Lawyers for the school district argue that the system has been changed to accommodate those who prefer coeducational classes.
Mark Friedman, a lawyer working with the ACLU, told a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit last week that the coeducational classes were special-needs classes and mostly male. The ACLU argues that the school’s gender-segregated classes violate federal Title IX rules, which prohibit sex discrimination in educational programs receiving federal funding, as well as the equal-protection clause of the U.S. Constitution.
