Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca9-18-35708/USCOURTS-ca9-18-35708-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 448
Nature of Suit: Civil Rights - Education
Cause of Action: 

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FOR PUBLICATION

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

PARENTS FOR PRIVACY; JON GOLLY;

KRIS GOLLY, individually and as

guardians ad litem for A.G.; NICOLE

LILLIE; MELISSA GREGORY,

individually and as guardian ad litem

for T.F.; PARENTS RIGHTS IN

EDUCATION, an Oregon nonprofit

corporation; LINDSAY GOLLY,

Plaintiffs-Appellants,

v.

WILLIAM P. BARR, Attorney

General; BETSY DEVOS; U.S.

DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION;

UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF

JUSTICE; DALLAS SCHOOL DISTRICT

NO. 2,

Defendants-Appellees,

BASIC RIGHTS OREGON,

Intervenor-Defendant-Appellee.

No.18-35708

D.C. No.

CV 17-1813 HZ

OPINION

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the District of Oregon

Marco A. Hernández, District Judge, Presiding

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2 PARENTS FOR PRIVACY V. BARR

Argued and Submitted July 11, 2019

Portland, Oregon

Filed February 12, 2020

Before: A. Wallace Tashima, Susan P. Graber,

and John B. Owens, Circuit Judges.

Opinion by Judge Tashima

SUMMARY*

Civil Rights

The panel affirmed the district court’s dismissal of an

action alleging that an Oregon public school district violated

Title IX, as well as the constitutional rights of students and of

parents, when it allowed transgender students to use school

bathrooms, locker rooms, and showers that match their

gender identity rather than the biological sex they were

assigned at birth. 

The Dallas School District No. 2 implemented a Student

Safety Plan after a student who had been born and who

remained biologically female publicly identified as a boy,

and asked school officials to allow him to use the boys’

bathroom and locker room. The Plan acknowledged the

student as a “transgender male” and permitted him to use the

boys’ locker room and bathroom facilities with his peers. 

* This summary constitutes no part of the opinion of the court. It has

been prepared by court staff for the convenience of the reader.

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PARENTS FOR PRIVACY V. BARR 3

The Plan provided that the student could use any of the

bathrooms in the building to which he identified sexually. 

The Student Safety Plan also provided, among other things,

that all staff would receive training and instruction regarding

Title IX, and that teachers would teach about anti-bullying

and harassment. 

The panel held that there is no Fourteenth Amendment

fundamental privacy right to avoid all risk of intimate

exposure to or by a transgender person who was assigned the

opposite biological sex at birth. Thus, the panel held that

plaintiffs failed to show that the contours of the privacy right

protected by the Fourteenth Amendment were so broad as to

protect against the School District’s implementation of the

Student Safety Plan. This conclusion was supported by the

fact that the Student Safety Plan provided alternative options

and privacy protections to those who did not want to share

facilities with a transgender student, even though those

alternative options admittedly appeared inferior and less

convenient.

The panel held that the Student Safety Plan sought to

avoid discrimination and ensure the safety and well-being of

transgender students; it did not violate Title IX. Thus, the

panel held that a policy that treats all students equally does

not discriminate based on sex in violation of Title IX, and that

the normal use of privacy facilities does not constitute

actionable sexual harassment under Title IX just because a

person is transgender. The panel stated that just because Title

IX authorizes sex-segregated facilities does not mean that

they are required, let alone that theymust be segregated based

only on biological sex and cannot accommodate gender

identity. Nowhere does the statute explicitly state, or even

suggest, that schools may not allow transgender students to

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4 PARENTS FOR PRIVACY V. BARR

use the facilities that are most consistent with their gender

identity. 

The panel held that the Fourteenth Amendment does not

provide a fundamental parental right to determine the

bathroom policies of the public schools to which parents may

send their children, either independent of the parental right to

direct the upbringing and education of their children or

encompassed by it. The panel stated that given that Supreme

Court and Ninth Circuit case law not only have not

recognized the specific rights asserted by plaintiffs, but

further foreclosed recognizing such rights as being

encompassed by the fundamental parental rights protected by

the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause,

amendment of this claim would be futile.

The panel held that the Student Safety Plan was rationally

related to a legitimate state purpose and did not infringe

plaintiffs’ First Amendment free exercise rights because it did

not target religious conduct. The panel held that because the

Student Safety Plan qualified as neutral and generally

applicable, it was not subject to strict scrutiny. The panel

rejected plaintiffs’ argument that strict scrutiny was required

because plaintiffs alleged multiple constitutional claims

concerning fundamental rights.

The panel concluded that the district court did not err by

failing to allow plaintiffs leave to replead because the

problem with plaintiffs’ complaint was not the sufficiency of

their factual allegations, but rather that plaintiffs’ legal

theories failed. Amending the complaint would not change,

for example, the extent of the rights that are protected by the

Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause. As a result,

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PARENTS FOR PRIVACY V. BARR 5

the panel affirmed the district court’s denial of leave to

amend.

COUNSEL

J. Ryan Adams (argued), Canby, Oregon; Herbert G. Grey,

Beaverton, Oregon; for Plaintiffs-Appellants.

Dennis Fan (argued) and Marleigh D. Dover, Appellate Staff;

Billy J. Williams, United States Attorney; Joseph H. Hunt,

Assistant Attorney General; Civil Division, United States

Department of Justice, Washington, D.C., for DefendantsAppellees William P. Barr, BetsyDeVos; U.S. Department of

Education, and United States Department of Justice.

Blake H. Fry (argued) and Peter R. Mersereau, Mersereau

Shannon LLP, Portland, Oregon, for Defendants-Appellees

Dallas School District No. 2.

Gabriel Arkles (argued) and Shayna Medley-Warsoff,

American Civil Liberties Union Foundation, New York, New

York; Peter D. Hawkes and Darin M. Sands, Lane Powell PC,

Portland, Oregon; Matthew W. dos Santos and Kelly Simon,

ACLU Foundation of Oregon; for Intervenor-DefendantAppellee.

Jesse Ryan Loffler, Cozen O’Connor, Pittsburgh,

Pennsylvania, for Amici Curiae Transgender Students and

Allies.

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6 PARENTS FOR PRIVACY V. BARR

AnthonyTodaro, JeffreyDeGroot, and Rachael Kessler, DLA

Piper LLP (US), Seattle, Washington; Fatima Goss Graves,

Emily Martin, Neena Chaudhry, and Sunu P. Chandy,

National Women’s Law Center, Washington, D.C.; for

Amicus Curiae National Women’s Law Center.

Wesley R. Powell, Mary Eaton, and Patricia O. Haynes,

Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP, New York, New York; Arthur

L. Coleman, Education Counsel LLC, Washington, D.C.; for

Amici Curiae National PTA, GLSEN, American School

Counselor Association, and National Association of School

Psychologists.

Devi M. Rao, Jenner & Block LLP, Washington, D.C.;

Andrew G. Sullivan, Jenner & Block LLP, Los Angeles,

California; for Amici Curiae American Academy of

Pediatrics, American Medical Association, American Public

Health Association, and 13 Other Medical, Mental Health,

and Other Health Care Organizations.

John C. Dwyer, Maureen P. Alger, Sarah R. Binning, and

Emily B. Harrington, Cooley LLP, Palo Alto, California;

Kyle Wong, CooleyLLP, San Francisco, California; Shannon

Minter, Amy Whelan, and Asaf Orr, National Center for

Lesbian Rights, San Francisco, California; Shawn

Meerkamper, Transgender Law Center, Oakland, California;

for Amici Curiae PFLAG Inc., Trans Youth Equality

Foundation, Gender Spectrum, Gender Diversity, and

Transactive Gender Project.

Alice O’Brien, Eric A. Harrington, and Gypsy M. Moore,

National Education Association, Washington, D.C., for

Amicus Curiae National Education Association.

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PARENTS FOR PRIVACY V. BARR 7

Ellen F. Rosenblum, Attorney General; Benjamin Gutman,

Solicitor General; Jona J. Maukonen, Assistant Attorney-InCharge; Office of the Attorney General, Salem, Oregon; for

Amicus Curiae State of Oregon.

Cynthia Cook Robertson, Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman

LLP, Washington, D.C.; Tara L. Borelli, Lambda Legal

Defense and Education Fund Inc., Atlanta, Georgia; Richard

M. Segal and Nathaniel R. Smith, Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw

Pittman LLP, San Diego, California; Robert C.K. Boyd and

William C. Miller, Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP,

Washington, D.C.; Peter C. Renn, Lambda Legal Defense and

Education Fund Inc., Los Angeles, California; for Amici

Curiae School Administrators from Thirty States and the

District of Columbia.

George G. Gordon, Ryan M. Moore, and Thomas J. Miller,

Dechert LLP, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Steven M.

Freeman, Kimberley Plotnik, David Barkey, and Melissa

Garlick, Anti-Defamation League, New York, New York; for

Amici Curiae Anti-Defamation League; Americans United

for Separation of Church and State; Bend the Arc Jewish

Action; Central Pacific Conference of the United Church of

Christ; Corvallis-area Lavender Women; Greater Seattle

Business Association; Hadassah, The Women’s Zionist

Organization of America, Inc.; Human Rights Campaign;

Jewish Council for Public Affairs; Jewish Federation of

Greater Portland; Keshet: For LGBTQ Equality in Jewish

Life; National Center for Transgender Equality; National

Center for Youth Law; National Council of Jewish Women;

National Queer Asian Pacific Islander Alliance; OCA - Asian

Pacific American Advocates; People For the American Way

Foundation; Public Counsel; South Asian Americans Leading

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8 PARENTS FOR PRIVACY V. BARR

Together; Union for Reform Judaism; and Central

Conference of American Rabbis.

OPINION

TASHIMA, Circuit Judge:

This case concerns whether an Oregon public school

district may allow transgender students to use school

bathrooms, locker rooms, and showers that match their

gender identity rather than the biological sex they were

assigned at birth. Plaintiffs oppose the school district’s

policy, asserting that it violates Title IX, as well as the

constitutional rights—including the right to privacy, the

parental right to direct the education and upbringing of one’s

children, and the right to freely exercise one’s religion—of

students and of parents of students in the school district. 

Defendants and many amici highlight the importance of the

policy for creating a safe, non-discriminatory school

environment for transgender students that avoids the

detrimental physical and mental health effects that have been

shown to result from transgender students’ exclusion from

privacy facilities that match their gender identities.

It is clear that this case touches on deeply personal issues

about which many have strong feelings and beliefs. 

Moreover, adolescence and the bodily and mental changes it

brings can be difficult for students, making bodily exposure

to other students in locker rooms a potential source of

anxiety—and this is particularly true for transgender students

who experience gender dysphoria. School districts face the

difficult task of navigating varying student (and parent)

beliefs and interests in order to foster a safe and productive

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PARENTS FOR PRIVACY V. BARR 9

learning environment, free from discrimination, that

accommodates the needs of all students. At the outset, we

note that it is not our role to pass judgment on the school

district’s policy or on how the school district can best fulfill

its duty as a public educational institution. We are asked only

to resolve whether the school district’s policy violates Title

IX or Plaintiffs’ constitutional rights.

In a thorough and well-reasoned opinion, the district court

dismissed the federal causes of action against the school

district for failure to state a claim upon which relief can be

granted.1 Parents for Privacy v. Dallas Sch. Dist. No. 2,

326 F. Supp. 3d 1075 (D. Or. 2018). We agree with the

district court and hold that there is no Fourteenth Amendment

fundamental privacy right to avoid all risk of intimate

exposure to or by a transgender person who was assigned the

opposite biological sex at birth. We also hold that a policy

that treats all students equally does not discriminate based on

sex in violation of Title IX, and that the normal use of privacy

facilities does not constitute actionable sexual harassment

under Title IX just because a person is transgender. We hold

further that the Fourteenth Amendment does not provide a

fundamental parental right to determine the bathroom policies

of the public schools to which parents may send their

children, either independent of the parental right to direct the

upbringing and education of their children or encompassed by

it. Finally, we hold that the school district’s policy is

rationally related to a legitimate state purpose, and does not

infringe Plaintiffs’ First Amendment free exercise rights

because it does not target religious conduct. Accordingly, we

1 The district court also dismissed Plaintiffs’ claims under Oregon

state law, but Plaintiffs do not challenge that portion of the district court’s

order on appeal.

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10 PARENTS FOR PRIVACY V. BARR

affirm the district court’s dismissal with prejudice of the

action.

I.

In September 2015, a student at Dallas High School who

had been born and who remained biologically female publicly

identified as a boy, and he asked school officials to allow him

to use the boys’ bathroom and locker room.2 DefendantAppellee Dallas School District No. 2 (the “District”)

responded by creating and implementing a “Student Safety

Plan” for the transgender boy (“Student A”) and any other

transgender student who might make a similar request in the

future, in order to ensure that transgender persons like

Student A could safely participate in school activities.

The Plan acknowledged Student A as a “transgender

male” and permitted him to use the boys’ locker room and

bathroom facilities with his peers at Dallas High School.3

The Plan also provided that, while Student A had not

indicated “which bathroom he feels comfortable using,”

Student A could “use any of the bathrooms in the building to

2 For the purposes of this appeal, which is taken from the dismissal of

Plaintiffs’ complaint, we drawthe facts fromthe complaint’s well-pleaded

factual allegations and from the exhibits attached to the complaint. See

Outdoor Media Grp., Inc. v. City of Beaumont, 506 F.3d 895, 899–900

(9th Cir. 2007) (“When ruling on a motion to dismiss, we may ‘generally

consider only allegations contained in the pleadings, exhibits attached to

the complaint, and matters properly subject to judicial notice.’” (quoting

Swartz v. KPMG LLP, 476 F.3d 756, 763 (9th Cir. 2007) (per curiam))). 

3 The District also planned to spend between $200,000 and $500,000

upgrading the high school’s bathrooms and locker rooms to better

accommodate their use by transgender students. 

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PARENTS FOR PRIVACY V. BARR 11

which he identifies sexually.” In addition, to ensure Student

A’s safety, the Student Safety Plan provided that all staff

would receive training and instruction regarding Title IX, that

teachers would teach about anti-bullying and harassment, that

the Physical Education (“PE”) teacher would be first to enter

and last to leave the locker room, and that Student A’s locker

would be in direct line of sight of the PE teacher in the

coach’s office. The Student Safety Plan also listed several

“Safe Adults” with whom Student A could share any

concerns.

Student A began using the boys’ locker room and

changing clothes “while male students were present.” This

caused several cisgender boys “embarrassment, humiliation,

anxiety, intimidation, fear, apprehension, and stress,” because

they had to change clothes for their PE class and attend to

their needs while someone who had been assigned the

opposite sex at birth was present.4 Although privacy stalls

were available in the bathrooms, these were insufficient to

alleviate the cisgender boys’ fear of exposing themselves to

Student A, because the stalls had gaps through which

“partially unclothed bodies” could “inadvertently” be seen. 

And an available single-user bathroom was often

inconvenient or was considered inferior because it lacked a

shower. As a consequence of their fear of exposure to

Student A, some cisgender boys began using the restroom as

little as possible while at school, and others risked tardiness

4

In the District, PE is a mandatory course for two or more years of

school, and students must change into and out of clothing appropriate for

PE class at the beginning and end of each PE class. Some of the cisgender

boys who had PE during the same class period as Student A changed into

their PE clothes as quickly as possible as a result of their anxiety that

Student A might see them in a partial state of undress.

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12 PARENTS FOR PRIVACY V. BARR

by using distant restrooms during passing periods in order to

try to find a restroom in which Student A was unlikely to be

present.

When parents and other students in the Dallas community

became aware of the Student Safety Plan, many opposed it

publicly at successive school board meetings, in an effort to

dissuade the District from implementing the policy. Some

parents in the District are concerned and anxious about the

prospect of their children using locker rooms or bathrooms

together with a student who was assigned the opposite

biological sex at birth. The Student Safety Plan also

interferes with some parents’ preferred moral and/or religious

teaching of their children concerning modesty and nudity. In

addition, several cisgender girls suffered from stress and

anxiety as a result of their fear that a transgender girl student

who remains biologically male would be allowed to use the

girls’ locker room and bathroom. Girls had the option of

changing in the nurse’s office, but it was on the other side of

the school.

Students who opposed the Student Safety Plan attempted

to circulate a petition opposing the policy, but the high school

principal confiscated the petitions and ordered students to

discontinue doing so or face disciplinary action. Despite the

objections raised by several parents and students, the District

continued to allow Student A to use the bathroom and locker

room that matched the gender with which he identified.

II.

In November 2017, Plaintiffs-Appellants Parents for

Privacy, Parents’ Rights in Education, and several individuals

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PARENTS FOR PRIVACY V. BARR 13

(collectively, “Plaintiffs”)5sued the District, the Oregon

Department of Education, the Governor of Oregon, and

various federal officials and agencies (collectively, the

“Federal Defendants”),6arguing that the Student Safety Plan

violates the Constitution and numerous other laws. The

complaint alleges eight claims:

5 The individual plaintiffs are or were students (“Student Plaintiffs”)

or parents of students (“Parent Plaintiffs”) in the District. Specifically,

Plaintiff Lindsay Golly formerly attended Dallas High School during the

2015–2016 school year while the Plan was in place. Plaintiffs Kris Golly

and Jon Golly are her parents, as well as the parents of their son A.G.,

who at the time of filing was an eighth-grade student who would soon

attend Dallas High School. Plaintiff Melissa Gregory is a parent of T.F.,

who at the time of filing was a student at Dallas High School.

Plaintiff Parents for Privacy is an unincorporated association whose

members included, at the time of filing, current and former students and

parents of current and former students in the District, as well as “other

concerned members of the District community.” Plaintiff Parents’ Rights

in Education is a nonprofit “whose mission is to protect and advocate for

parents’ rights to guide the education of their children.”

6 The Federal Defendants are the U.S. Department of Justice, U.S.

Department of Education, Attorney General, and Secretary of Education. 

These defendants were involved at various times in the issuance and

enforcement of a number of guidance documents that initially promoted

accommodation of transgender students in public schools, including on

Title IX grounds. Subsequently, some of those guidance documents were

withdrawn, and others were later superseded by contrary guidance

documents. Plaintiffs asserted that, notwithstanding the withdrawal of the

relevant guidance documents, the Federal Defendants, in part, caused the

District to adopt the Student Safety Plan, because the guidance “has not

been formally repealed, and it has continuing legal force and effect [that

is] binding” upon the Dallas School District. Thus, the complaint seeks

to enjoin the Federal Defendants from “taking any action” based on their

previous guidance.

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14 PARENTS FOR PRIVACY V. BARR

(1) violation by the Federal Defendants of the

Administrative Procedure Act, 5 U.S.C.

§§ 551–559;

(2) violation by the District and the Federal

Defendants of the Fundamental Right to

Privacy under the Fourteenth Amendment

to the Constitution;

(3) violation by the District and the Federal

Defendants of Parents’FundamentalRight

to Direct the Education and Upbringing of

Their Children under the Fourteenth

Amendment;

(4) violation by the District of Title IX,

20 U.S.C. §§ 1681–1688;

(5) violation by the Federal Defendants of the

Religious Freedom Restoration Act of

1993, 42 U.S.C. § 2000bb–2000bb–4;

(6) violation by the District and the Federal

Defendants of the First Amendment’s

Guarantee of Free Exercise of Religion;

(7) violation by the District, the Governor of

Oregon, and the Oregon Department of

Education of Oregon’s Public

Accommodation Discrimination law, Or.

Rev. Stat. § 659A.885; and

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PARENTS FOR PRIVACY V. BARR 15

(8) violation by the District of Oregon’s

Discrimination in Education law, Or. Rev.

Stat. § 659.850.

Plaintiffs sought to enjoin Defendants from enforcing the

Student Safety Plan, and they sought a court order requiring

the District to mandate that students use only the bathrooms,

locker rooms, and showers that match their biological sex

assigned at birth.

Upon the parties’ stipulation, Plaintiffs’ claims against

Oregon Governor Kate Brown and the Oregon Department

of Education were voluntarily dismissed on Eleventh

Amendment grounds.7, 8

Thereafter the District, Basic Rights Oregon, and the

Federal Defendants each moved to dismiss Plaintiffs’

complaint. In a lengthy, detailed, and careful opinion, the

district court granted all three motions and dismissed the case

with prejudice. Parents for Privacy, 326 F. Supp. 3d at 1111. 

The court dismissed the claims against the District and Basic

Rights Oregon on the merits under Federal Rule of Civil

Procedure 12(b)(6), concluding that Plaintiffs had failed to

state claims upon which relief could be granted because the

legal theories on which Plaintiffs’ claims were premised

7 Those two dismissed defendants later requested and were granted

leave to appear as amici.

8 Also, Basic Rights Oregon, a non-profit LGBTQ advocacy

organization that had been involved in the development and

implementation of the Student Safety Plan, moved to intervene as a

defendant, which the district court granted.

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16 PARENTS FOR PRIVACY V. BARR

failed, and that amendment of the claims would therefore be

futile. Id. at 1092–1110.

Separately, the court addressed the Federal Defendants’

motion to dismiss Plaintiffs’ claims against the Federal

Defendants for lack ofstanding, and concluded that Plaintiffs

indeed lacked Article IIIstanding to bring their claims against

the Federal Defendants. The court explained that Plaintiffs

had not established causation or redressability with respect

to the Federal Defendants, because the District had adopted

the Student Safety Plan “in response to Student A’s

accommodation requests, not [the] Federal Defendants’

actions,” and the District would “retain[] the discretion to

continue enforcing the Plan” notwithstanding any relief

against the Federal Defendants. Id. at 1087–92.

Plaintiffs appealed the district court’s dismissal order,

arguing that the district court erred by dismissing, for failure

to state a claim under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure

12(b)(6), their Title IX and constitutional claims against the

District. Plaintiffs further contend that the district court

committed reversible error in failing to provide Plaintiffs an

opportunity to amend their complaint and instead dismissing

the case with prejudice. 

III.

We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291, and we

review de novo the grant of a Rule 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss

for failure to state a claim upon which relief may be granted. 

Fields v. Palmdale Sch. Dist., 427 F.3d 1197, 1203 (9th Cir.

2005), amended on denial of reh’g by 447 F.3d 1187 (9th Cir.

2006) (per curiam). Under Rule 12(b)(6), a complaint must

be dismissed when a plaintiff’s allegations fail to set forth a

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PARENTS FOR PRIVACY V. BARR 17

set of facts that, if true, would entitle the complainant to

relief. Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 555 (2007);

see also Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 679 (2009) (holding

that a claim must be facially plausible in order to survive a

motion to dismiss). In assessing whether a plaintiff has stated

a claim, we accept as true all well-pleaded factual allegations,

and construe all factual inferences in the light most favorable

to the plaintiff. See Manzarek v. St. Paul Fire & Marine Ins.

Co., 519 F.3d 1025, 1031 (9th Cir. 2008). However, we are

not required to accept as true legal conclusions couched as

factual allegations. Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 678; Fayer v. Vaughn,

649 F.3d 1061, 1064 (9th Cir. 2011) (per curiam).

Dismissal of a complaint without leave to amend is

improper unless it is clear, on de novo review, that the

complaint could not be saved by any amendment. See

Eminence Capital, LLC v. Aspeon, Inc., 316 F.3d 1048, 1052

(9th Cir. 2003) (per curiam); Lopez v. Smith, 203 F.3d 1122,

1127 (9th Cir. 2000) (en banc). “A district court acts within

its discretion to deny leave to amend when amendment would

be futile . . . .” V.V.V. & Sons Edible Oils Ltd. v. Meenakshi

Overseas, LLC, 946 F.3d 542, 547 (9th Cir. 2019) (ellipsis in

original) (quoting Chappel v. Lab. Corp. of Am., 232 F.3d

719, 725 (9th Cir. 2000)).

IV.

On appeal, Plaintiffs challenge the district court’s

dismissal of their claims that the District violated: (1) the

Fourteenth Amendment right to privacy; (2) Title IX; (3) the

Fourteenth Amendment right to direct the education and

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18 PARENTS FOR PRIVACY V. BARR

upbringing of one’s children; and (4) the First Amendment’s

Free Exercise Clause.9 We address each claim seriatim.

A.

First, Plaintiffs challenge the district court’s dismissal of

their claim for violation of a fundamental right to privacy

under the Fourteenth Amendment.

The Fourteenth Amendment provides that no state shall

“deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due

process of law.” U.S. Const. amend. XIV, § 1. The

Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause “specially

protects those fundamental rights and liberties which are,

objectively, deeply rooted in this Nation’s history and

tradition, and implicit in the concept of ordered liberty, such

that neither liberty nor justice would exist if they were

sacrificed.” Washington v. Glucksberg, 521 U.S. 702,

720–21 (1997) (internal quotation marks and citations

omitted). The Supreme Court has recognized that “one aspect

of the ‘liberty’ protected by the Due Process Clause of the

Fourteenth Amendment is ‘a right of personal privacy, or a

guarantee of certain areas or zones of privacy.’” Carey v.

9

In their opening brief, Plaintiffs do not challenge or discuss the

district court’s ruling that Plaintiffs lacked Article III standing to sue

Federal Defendants as a result of Plaintiffs’ failure to establish causation

and redressability. We therefore do not review the district court’s

dismissal of Plaintiffs’ claims against Federal Defendants. See

Mandelbrot v. J.T. Thorpe Settlement Trust (In re J.T. Thorpe, Inc.),

870 F.3d 1121, 1124 (9th Cir. 2017) (“[W]e will not ordinarily consider

matters on appeal that are not specifically and distinctly raised and argued

in appellant’s opening brief.” (quoting Int’l Union of Bricklayers &Allied

Craftsman Local Union No. 20 v. Martin Jasika, Inc., 752 F.2d 1401,

1404 (9th Cir. 1985))).

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PARENTS FOR PRIVACY V. BARR 19

Population Servs. Int’l, 431 U.S. 678, 684 (1977) (quoting

Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113, 152, (1973)). This right includes

“at least two constitutionally protected privacy interests: the

right to control the disclosure of sensitive information and the

right to ‘independence [in] making certain kinds of important

decisions.’” Fields, 427 F.3d at 1207 (quoting Whalen v.

Roe, 429 U.S. 589, 599–600 (1977); see also Marsh v. County

of San Diego, 680 F.3d 1148, 1153 (9th Cir. 2012).

Plaintiffs contend that the privacy protections afforded by

the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause also

encompass a “fundamental right to bodily privacy” that

includes “a right to privacy of one’s fully or partially

unclothed body and the right to be free from State-compelled

risk of intimate exposure of oneself to the opposite sex.” 

Further, they assert that “[f]reedom from the risk of

compelled intimate exposure to the opposite sex, especially

for minors, is a fundamental right deeply rooted in this

nation’s history and tradition and is also implicit in the

concept of ordered liberty.” Because the District’s Student

Safety Plan allegedly infringes these rights by “requir[ing]

Student Plaintiffs to risk being intimately exposed to those of

the opposite biological sex . . . without any compelling

justification,” Plaintiffs contend that theDistrict violated their

fundamental Fourteenth Amendment rights.

The district court dismissed this claim on the ground that

the complaint did not allege infringement of any

constitutionally protected right. It concluded that the

Fourteenth Amendment does not provide high school students

with a constitutional privacy right not to share restrooms or

locker rooms with transgender students whose sex assigned

at birth is different than theirs. Parents for Privacy, 326 F.

Supp. 3d at 1099.

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In reaching this conclusion, the district court examined

the authorities on which Plaintiffs relied, but rejected those

cases as inapposite because, unlike the scenario presented in

this case, those cases “involve[d] egregious state-compelled

intrusions into one’s personal privacy,” such as “government

officials”—often law enforcement or correctional

officers—“viewing or touching the naked bodies of persons

of the opposite sex against their will.” Id. For example, the

district court noted that York v. Story, 324 F.2d 450, 452 (9th

Cir. 1963), the Ninth Circuit case that Plaintiffs claim

provides the basis for their asserted right to bodily privacy,

“involved a male police officer taking unnecessary nude

photographs of a female victim in provocative positions and

circulating them to other officers.” Parents for Privacy,

326 F. Supp. 3d at 1097. Similarly, the Ninth Circuit in

Supelveda v. Ramirez, 967 F.2d 1413, 1415 (9th Cir. 1992),

determined that a male parole officer violated a female

parolee’s right to bodily privacy by entering her bathroom

stall over her objections and remaining in the stall while she

“finished urinating, cleaned herself, and dressed.” Parents for

Privacy, 326 F. Supp. 3d at 1097. And, the district court

noted, Byrd v. Maricopa County Sheriff’s Department,

629 F.3d 1135, 1137 (9th Cir. 2011), concerned a strip search

by a female cadet of a male detainee in the presence of

approximately three dozen cadets and detention officers as

well as other male detainees, which the Ninth Circuit

determined violated the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition on

unreasonable searches. Parents for Privacy, 326 F. Supp. 3d

at 1097.

Because “none of these cases support[ed] the proposition

that high school students have a fundamental right not to

share restrooms and locker rooms with transgender students

who have a different assigned sex than theirs,” the district

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court concluded that “Plaintiffs have failed to sufficiently

allege a fundamental right to privacy cognizable under the

Fourteenth Amendment.”10Id. at 1096–99. It explained that

“[t]o hold otherwise would sweepingly expand the right to

privacy beyond what any court has recognized,” in

contravention of the Supreme Court’s reluctance to expand

the “short list” of liberty rights protected by the Due Process

Clause, including “the rights to marry, to have children, to

direct the education and upbringing of one’s children, to

marital privacy, to use contraception, to bodily integrity, and

to abortion.” Id. at 1099 (quoting Glucksberg, 521 U.S.

at 720). Thus, because “[t]he potential threat that a high

school student might see or be seen by someone of the

opposite biological sex while either are undressing or

performing bodily functions in a restroom, shower, or locker

room does not give rise to a constitutional violation,” the

district court concluded that Plaintiffs failed to state a claim

for violation of the Fourteenth Amendment. See id.

10 For further support for the obvious distinction between Plaintiffs’

cited cases and the circumstances presented in this case, the district court

pointed to several out-of-circuit cases similar to this one in which courts

also rejected Plaintiffs’ purported privacy interest, in favor of transgender

students’ access to school facilities. Parents for Privacy, 326 F. Supp. 3d

at 1093–96; see, e.g., Doe ex rel. Doe v. Boyertown Area Sch. Dist.,

897 F.3d 518, 531 (3d Cir. 2018) (“[W]e decline to recognize such an

expansive constitutional right to privacy—a right that would be violated

by the presence of students [in restrooms or locker rooms] who do not

share the same birth sex.”), cert. denied, 139 S. Ct. 2636 (2019); Whitaker

ex rel. Whitaker v. Kenosha Unified Sch. Dist. No. 1 Bd. of Educ.,

858 F.3d 1034, 1052 (9th Cir. 2017) (“A transgender student’s presence

in the restroom provides no more of a risk to other students’ privacy rights

than the presence of . . . any other student who used the bathroom at the

same time.”), cert. dismissed, 138 S. Ct. 1260 (2018).

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On appeal, Plaintiffs make several ultimately unavailing

arguments about why the district court erred in dismissing

their privacy rights claim under the Fourteenth Amendment. 

First, they argue that the Ninth Circuit in York, 324 F.2d

at 455, recognized the right to bodily privacy when it

commented that “[t]he desire to shield one’s unclothed figure

from views of strangers, and particularly strangers of the

opposite sex, is impelled by elementary self-respect and

personal dignity.” The problem with this argument is that

York addressed an egregious privacy violation by police and

recognized a much more specific and limited Due Process

privacy right than Plaintiffs claim here. As noted, York

involved a male police officer who coerced a female assault

victim to allow him to take unnecessary nude photographs of

her, which he later distributed to other officers. See id.

at 452. In discussing the plaintiff’s claim for violation of her

fundamental right to privacy under the Fourteenth

Amendment, we explained:

We are not called upon to decide as an

original proposition whether ‘privacy,’ as

such, is comprehended within the ‘liberty’ of

which one may not be deprived without due

process of law, as used in the Due Process

Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. For it

has already been declared by the Supreme

Court that the security of one’s privacy

against arbitrary intrusion by the police is

basic to a free society and is therefore

‘implicit in the concept of ordered liberty,’

embraced within the Due Process Clause of

the Fourteenth Amendment.

Id. at 454–55 (emphasis added) (footnote omitted).

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Thus, York recognized an established right to be free from

arbitrary police intrusions upon one’s privacy under the

Fourth Amendment. See id. at 455 (“A search of one’s home

has been established to be an invasion of one’s privacy

against intrusion by the police, which, if ‘unreasonable,’ is

arbitrary and therefore banned under the Fourth Amendment. 

We do not see how it can be argued that the searching of

one’s home deprives him of privacy, but the photographing

of one’s nude body, and the distribution of such photographs

to strangers does not.” (footnote omitted)). Thus, York did

not recognize a more general right to be free from alleged

privacy intrusions by other non-government persons, or a

privacy right to avoid any risk of being exposed briefly to

opposite-sex nudity by sharing locker facilities with

transgender students in public schools.

Moreover, the actions that the Ninth Circuit concluded

made the police’s intrusion in York so arbitrary as to rise to

the level of a violation of the plaintiff’s privacy right under

the Due Process Clause were far more invasive than the

transgender student’s actions alleged in this case. In York, we

explained:

[W]e [cannot] imagine a more arbitrary police

intrusion upon the security of [a person’s]

privacy than for a male police officer to

unnecessarily photograph the nude body of a

female citizen who has made complaint of an

assault upon her, over her protest that the

photographs would show no injuries, and at a

time when a female police officer could have

been, but was not, called in for this purpose,

and to distribute those photographs to other

personnel of the police department despite the

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24 PARENTS FOR PRIVACY V. BARR

fact that such distribution of the photographs

could not have aided in apprehending the

person who perpetrated the assault.

Id. Here, Plaintiffs do not allege that transgender students are

taking nude photographs of them or purposefully taking overt

steps to invade their privacy for no legitimate reason. Thus,

beyond failing to support the broad privacy right claimed by

Plaintiffs, York is also readily distinguishable on its facts.

Next, Plaintiffs point to out-of-circuit cases to argue that

the Fourteenth Amendment protects a “privacy interest in [a

person’s] partially clothed body.” See, e.g., Doe v. Luzerne

County, 660 F.3d 169, 175–76 & 176 n.5 (3d Cir. 2011). But

beyond the fact that those cases are not binding, none of them

directly supports Plaintiffs’ argument that the Constitution

affords a broad privacyright protecting against being exposed

in even a partial state of undress to any person of the opposite

sex, whether or not they are a government actor. For

example, Luzerne County involved the unconsented and

surreptitious filming of a female deputy sheriff by male

superior officers while she was completely undressed, and the

subsequent sharing of the video footage and still photos. See

id. at 171–73, 175–78. The Third Circuit analyzed whether

the public disclosure of those files violated constitutional

“protect[ions] against public disclosure [of] . . . highly

personal matters representing the most intimate aspects of

human affairs,” id. at 176 (second alteration in original)

(quoting Nunez v. Pachman, 578, F.3d 228, 232 (3d Cir.

2009), noting that “a person’s right to avoid disclosure of

personal matters is not absolute,” id. at 178, because

“[d]isclosure may be required if the government interest in

disclosure outweighs the individual’s privacy interest,” id.

(quoting Fraternal Order of Police, Lodge No. 5 v. City of

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Philadelphia, 812 F.2d 105, 110 (3d Cir. 1987)). Thus, both

the facts and the legal issue in Luzerne are distinguishable

from the case at bench, because this case does not involve a

privacy intrusion by government officers or the public

disclosure of photos or video footage.11

Finally, Plaintiffs attempt to support their Fourteenth

Amendment argument by pointing to cases suggesting that

providing separate restrooms for males and females is not

illegal, cases discussing Fourth Amendment violations, and

cases addressing whether Title VII protects against

discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender

identity. Those cases, however, are inapposite; none

establishes a Fourteenth Amendment right to privacy that

protects against any risk of bodily exposure to a transgender

student in school facilities.

In sum, Plaintiffs fail to show that the contours of the

privacy right protected by the Fourteenth Amendment are so

11 Other cases cited by Plaintiffs are similarly inapposite. Poe v.

Leonard, 282 F.3d 123 (2d Cir. 2002), also involved the surreptitious and

unconsented filming of a female officer by a male law enforcement

officer. See id. at 138. The court concluded that the plaintiff had stated

a claim for a violation of her Fourteenth Amendment privacy rights

because the officer’s behavior constituted “arbitrary government action”

that “shock[ed] the conscience” and was “without any reasonable

justification in the service of a legitimate governmental objective.” Id.

at 139 (quoting County of Sacramento v. Lewis, 523 U.S. 833, 845–46

(1998)). Again, the instant case does not involve an arbitrary privacy

intrusion by a law enforcement officer in the form of unconsented filming.

Similarly, Canedy v. Boardman, 16 F.3d 183 (7th Cir. 1994), is

distinguishable because it involved a non-emergency strip search of a

male inmate by two female deputies, even though other male officers were

nearby and could have conducted the search. See id. at 184–85.

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broad as to protect against the District’s implementation of

the Student Safety Plan.12 This conclusion is supported by

the fact that the Student Safety Plan provides alternative

options and privacy protections to those who do not want to

share facilities with a transgender student, even though those

alternative options admittedly appear inferior and less

convenient. See Caribbean Marine Servs. Co. v. Baldrige,

844 F.2d 668, 678 (9th Cir. 1998) (suggesting that in cases in

which privacy interests must be weighed against

governmental interests, inconvenience and slight discomfort

that results from attempting to accommodate both interests

are not enough to establish a privacy violation).

Accordingly, we affirm the district court’s dismissal with

prejudice of Plaintiffs’ claim for violation of privacy under

the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause. See

Albright v. Oliver, 510 U.S. 266, 271 (1994) (holding that the

plaintiff’s § 1983 claim failed where the plaintiff failed to

establish that he was deprived of a substantive due process

right secured by the Constitution). Because this claim is

premised on the violation of an asserted right that, as a matter

12 As a result, Plaintiffs’ argument that the District placed an

unconstitutional condition on their privacy rights by implementing the

Student Safety Plan also fails. If the asserted right is not protected by the

Constitution, then any conditions that the District allegedly placed on the

asserted right cannot be constitutionally impermissible. See Koontz v. St.

Johns River Water Mgmt. Dist., 570 U.S. 595, 604 (2013) (“[T]he

unconstitutional conditions doctrine . . . vindicates the Constitution’s

enumerated rights by preventing the government from coercing people

into giving them up.”).

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of law, is not protected by the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due

Process Clause, amendment of this claim would be futile.13

B.

Next, Plaintiffs contend that the district court erred in

failing to recognize that the District’s policy violates Title IX

by turning locker rooms, showers, and multi-user restrooms

into sexually harassing environments and by forcing students

to forgo use of such facilities as the solution to harassment.

Title IX provides that “[n]o person in the United States

shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in,

be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination

under any education program or activity receiving Federal

financial assistance . . . .” 20 U.S.C. § 1681(a). Plaintiffs

allege that the Student Safety Plan violates Title IX because

it “produces unwelcome sexual harassment and create[s] a

hostile environment on the basis of sex.” They allege that the

Plan “needlessly subjects Student Plaintiffs to the risk that

their partially or fully unclothed bodies will be exposed to

students of the opposite sex and that they will be exposed to

opposite-sex nudity, causing the Student Plaintiffs to

experience embarrassment, humiliation, anxiety, intimidation,

fear, apprehension, stress, degradation, and loss of dignity.” 

13 Because we agree with the district court that the right to privacy on

which Plaintiffs’ claimis premised is not protected by the Constitution, we

do not reach the district court’s further conclusions that: (1) even if the

right asserted by Plaintiffs were protected by the Constitution, the

presence of a transgender student in school facilities does not infringe that

right, see Parents for Privacy, 326 F. Supp. 3d at 1100–01; and

(2) policies permitting transgender access further a compelling state

interest in protecting transgender students from discrimination and are

narrowly tailored to satisfy strict scrutiny. Id.

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According to Plaintiffs, “[a]llowing people to use restrooms,

locker rooms or showers designated for the opposite

biological sex violates privacy and creates a sexually

harassing environment,” in part because “[e]xposure to

opposite-sex nudity creates a sexually harassing hostile

environment.” As a result of this allegedly harassing

environment, “all Student Plaintiffs find that school has

become intimidating and stressful,” and some of them “are

avoiding the restroom” and “are not able to concentrate as

well in school.”

Stating a Title IX hostile environment claim requires

alleging that the school district: (1) had actual knowledge of;

(2) and was deliberately indifferent to; (3) harassment

because of sex that was; (4) “so severe, pervasive, and

objectively offensive that it can be said to deprive the victims

of access to the educational opportunities or benefits provided

by the school.” Davis ex rel. laShonda D. v. Monroe Cty. Bd.

of Educ., 526 U.S. 629, 650 (1999); see also Reese v.

Jefferson Sch. Dist. No. 14J, 208 F.3d 736, 738–39 (9th Cir.

2000). The district court ruled that Plaintiffs had failed to

establish the third and fourth elements and, on that basis,

dismissed Plaintiffs’ Title IX hostile environment claim. 

Parents for Privacy, 326 F. Supp. 3d at 1104.

The district court concluded that the alleged harassment

was not discrimination on the basis of sex within the meaning

of Title IX, because the “District’s plan does not target any

Student Plaintiff because of their sex.” Id. at 1102. Rather,

the Student Safety Plan applies to all students regardless of

their sex, and therefore “Student Plaintiffs have not

demonstrated that they are being treated any differently from

other students at Dallas High School.”

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In addition, the district court held that Plaintiffs failed to

show “that the District’s Plan discriminates because of sex, or

that it creates a severe, pervasive, and objectively offensive

environment.” Id. at 1104. The court explained that, in

contrast to cases involving “egregious and persistent acts of

sexual violence and verbal harassment,” “[c]ourts have

recognized that the presence of transgender people in an

intimate setting does not, by itself, create a sexually harassing

environment that is severe or pervasive.” Id. at 1102; see

also id. at 1102–04 (discussing cases). Noting Plaintiffs’

failure to cite supporting authority, the district court rejected

Plaintiffs’ arguments that harassment was pervasive because

the District’s Plan is “widely applied” and that the Plan is

objectivelyoffensive because sex-segregated facilities are the

well-established norm. Id. at 1103–04.

Again, we agree with the district court’s analysis and find

Plaintiffs’ contrary arguments unpersuasive. First, Plaintiffs

argue broadly that Title IX “unequivocally uphold[s] the right

to bodily privacy” and therefore requires that facilities be

segregated based on “biological” sex rather than “gender

identity.” To support this argument, Plaintiffs point out that

the statute provides that it should not be construed to

“prohibit any educational institution . . . from maintaining

separate living facilities for the different sexes,” 20 U.S.C.

§ 1686, and that Title IX’s implementing regulations

specifically authorize providing separate but comparable

“toilet, locker room, and shower facilities on the basis of

sex,” 34 C.F.R. § 106.33. Plaintiffs further argue that Title

IX’s text and its legislative history make clear that the

permitted basis on which such “separate” facilities may be

segregated—“sex”— refers to “biological sex” as assigned at

birth, and cannot encompass gender identity.

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But just because Title IX authorizes sex-segregated

facilities does not mean that they are required, let alone that

they must be segregated based only on biological sex and

cannot accommodate gender identity. Nowhere does the

statute explicitly state, or even suggest, that schools may not

allow transgender students to use the facilities that are most

consistent with their gender identity. That is, Title IX does

not specifically make actionable a school’s decision not to

provide facilities segregated by “biological sex”; contrary to

Plaintiffs’ suggestion, the statute does not create distinct

“bodily privacy rights” that may be vindicated through suit. 

Instead, Title IX provides recourse for discriminatory

treatment “on the basis of sex.” 20 U.S.C. § 1681(a). Thus,

even if Plaintiffs are correct that “Congress intended to

preserve distinct privacy facilities based on biological sex”

and that the District chose not to do so, that fact alone is

insufficient to state a legally cognizable claim under Title IX. 

Rather, to show that the District violated Title IX, Plaintiffs

must establish that the District had actual knowledge of and

was deliberately indifferent to harassment because of sex that

was “so severe, pervasive, and objectively offensive that it

can be said to deprive the victims of access to the educational

opportunities or benefits provided by the school.” Davis,

526 U.S. at 650; see also Reese, 208 F.3d at 739.

Plaintiffs focus on the third and fourth elements of a Title

IX hostile environment claim, as did the district court, namely

whether there was harassment because of sex that was so

severe, pervasive, and objectively offensive that it deprived

Plaintiffs of access to the educational opportunities or

benefits provided by Dallas High School. First, Plaintiffs

assert that the Student Safety Plan created harassment on the

basis of sex “because the only way to achieve the policy’s

purpose of opposite-sex affirmation is to select facilities

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based on the sex (or gender identity) of users.” But just

because the Student Safety Plan implicitly addresses the

topics of sex and gender by seeking to accommodate a

transgender student’s gender identity, or because it segregates

facilities by gender identity, does not mean that the Plan

harasses other students on the basis of their sex. As the

district court explained, the Plan does not target students or

discriminate against them on the basis of their sex; the

Student Safety Plan treats all students—male and

female—the same. See Parents for Privacy, 326 F. Supp. 3d

at 1096–97.

Plaintiffs respond that the district court’s conclusion that

there was no harassment based on sex because the Student

Safety Plan affects all students equally is “legally and

logically indefensible.” Plaintiffs argue that the fact that the

Student Safety Plan affects both sexes does not preclude a

Title IX violation, because the Plan actually harasses both

sexes on the basis of their sex by allowing students assigned

the opposite sex at birth to enter privacy facilities. But

Plaintiffs cite no authority to support the notion that “equal

harassment” against both sexes is cognizable under Title IX.

To the contrary, treating both male and female students

the same suggests an absence of gender/sex animus, while

Title IX is aimed at addressing discrimination based on sex or

gender stereotypes. Numerous courts have ruled that a Title

IX sexual harassment hostile environment claim fails where

the alleged harassment is inflicted without regard to gender

or sex, i.e., where there is no discrimination. See Doe ex rel.

Doe v. Boyertown Area Sch. Dist., 276 F. Supp. 3d 324,

394–95 (E.D. Pa. 2017) (collecting cases), aff’d, 897 F.3d

518 (3d Cir. 2018), cert. denied, 139 S. Ct. 2636 (2019). We

see no reason to arrive at a different conclusion here. 

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Plaintiffs’ argument that the alleged harassment was “based

on sex” because it involved opposite-sex nudity conflates the

basis for the perceived harm—a distinction between

biological sexes—with the basis for the alleged harassment,

which, as discussed above, Plaintiffs have not shown was

discriminatory or motivated by any gender animus. In sum,

the district court correctly ruled that Plaintiffs failed to

establish the third element of their Title IX claim. See

Parents for Privacy, 326 F. Supp. 3d at 1102.

The district court also correctly ruled that Plaintiffs failed

to establish the fourth element of their Title IX claim. See id.

at 1104. Plaintiffs argue that they satisfy the fourth element

of a hostile environment claim because the alleged

harassment is both viewed subjectively as harassment by the

victims and is, objectively, sufficiently severe or pervasive

that a reasonable person would agree that it is harassment. 

However, even crediting Plaintiffs’ subjective perceptions,

under the totality of the circumstances, the alleged

harassment is not so severe, pervasive, and objectively

offensive to rise to the level of a Title IX violation. Plaintiffs

do not allege that transgender students are making

inappropriate comments, threatening them, deliberately

flaunting nudity, or physically touching them. Rather,

Plaintiffs allegedly feel harassed by the mere presence of

transgender students in locker and bathroom facilities. This

cannot be enough. The use of facilities for their intended

purpose, without more, does not constitute an act of

harassment simply because a person is transgender. See

Cruzan v. Special Sch. Dist., # 1, 294 F.3d 981, 984 (8th Cir.

2002) (per curiam) (concluding that a transgender woman’s

“merely being present in the women’s . . . restroom” did not

constitute actionable sexual harassment of her female coworkers); cf. Davis, 526 U.S. at 650, 652–53 (explaining that

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“peer harassment . . . is less likely to [violate Title IX] than is

teacher-student harassment” in part because “simple acts of

teasing and name-calling among school children” do not

establish severe harassment, and noting that “[t]he most

obvious example of student-on-student sexual harassment

capable of triggering a damages claim would . . . involve the

overt, physical deprivation of access to school resources,” for

example by making effective physical threats).

Accordingly, we affirm the district court’s dismissal with

prejudice of Plaintiffs’ Title IX hostile environment claim. 

Because the Student Safety Plan does not discriminate on the

basis of sex, amendment would be futile. 

C.

Next, Plaintiffs challenge the dismissal of their

Fourteenth Amendment claim for violation of Parent

Plaintiffs’ fundamental rights to direct the care, education,

and upbringing of their children.

As discussed above, the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due

Process Clause “specially protects those fundamental rights

and liberties which are, objectively, deeply rooted in this

Nation’s history and tradition, and implicit in the concept of

ordered liberty.” Glucksberg, 521 U.S. at 720–21 (internal

quotation marks and citations omitted). The Supreme Court

has held that one such fundamental liberty interest protected

by the Due Process Clause is “the fundamental right of

parents to make decisions concerning the care, custody, and

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control of their children.”14 Troxel v. Granville, 530 U.S. 57,

66 (2000); see also Fields, 427 F.3d at 1204. Among other

things, this right means that

the state cannot prevent parents from choosing

a specific educational program—whether it be

religious instruction at a private school or

instruction in a foreign language. That is, the

state does not have the power to “standardize

its children” or “foster a homogenous people”

by completely foreclosing the opportunity of

individuals and groups to choose a different

path of education.

Id. at 1205 (quoting Brown v. Hot, Sexy & Safer Prods., Inc.,

68 F.3d 525, 533–34 (1st Cir.1995), abrogated on other

grounds by Martinez v. Cui, 608 F.3d 54 (1st Cir. 2010)). 

This freedom, however, does not “encompass[] a fundamental

constitutional right to dictate the curriculum at the public

school to which [parents] have chosen to send their children.” 

Id.

Parent Plaintiffs allege that the fundamental parental right

to make decisions concerning the care, custody, and control

of their children also encompasses the following rights: 

(1) “the power to direct the education and upbringing of

[their] children”; (2) the right to “instill moral standards and

values in their children”; (3) the “right to determine whether

and when their children will have to risk being exposed to

opposite sex nudity at school”; and (4) the “right to determine

14 This right is commonly referred to as the Meyer–Pierce right

because it finds its origin in two Supreme Court cases, Meyer v. Nebraska,

262 U.S. 390 (1923), and Pierce v. Society of Sisters, 268 U.S. 510 (1925).

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whether their children, while at school, will have to risk

exposing their own undressed or partially unclothed bodies to

members of the opposite sex” in “intimate, vulnerable

settings like restrooms, locker rooms and showers.” Parent

Plaintiffs claim that the District’s implementation of the

Student Safety Plan violates these rights, and therefore the

Fourteenth Amendment, because Parent Plaintiffs “do not

want their minor children to endure the risk of being exposed

to the opposite sex . . . nor do they want their minor children

to attend to their personal, private bodily needs in the

presence of members of the opposite sex.” They explain that

they “desire to raise their children with a respect for

traditional modesty, which requires that one not undress or

use the restroom in the presence of the opposite sex,” and that

some parents also object to the Student Safety Plan because

of “sincerely-held religious beliefs.”

The district court disposed of this claim on the ground

that the fundamental parental right protected by the

Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause is narrower

than Plaintiffs assert. See Parents for Privacy, 326 F. Supp.

3d at 1108–09. The district court reasoned that although

Parent Plaintiffs have the right to choose where their children

obtain an education, meaning that they have a right to remove

their children from Dallas High School if they disapprove of

transgender student access to facilities, binding Ninth Circuit

authority makes clear that “Parent Plaintiffs’ Fourteenth

Amendment liberty interest in the education and upbringing

of their children ‘does not extend beyond the threshold of the

school door.’” Id. at 1109 (quoting Fields, 427 F.3d

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at 1207).15 The district court thus disagreed with Plaintiffs’

unsupported proposition that parents “retain the right to

prevent transgender students from sharing school facilities

with their children.” Id.

On appeal, Parent Plaintiffs argue that the district court

erroneously limited their fundamental parental rights. They

challenge in particular the district court’s conclusion that

their parental rights do not “extend beyond the threshold of

the school door.” Plaintiffs, relying on Troxel, 530 U.S. at 

65–66 (quoting Prince v. Massachusetts, 321 U.S. 158, 166

(1944)), note that “the custody, care, and nurture of the child

reside first in the parents, whose primary function and

freedom include preparation for obligations the state can

neither supply nor hinder.” But other than affirming that

parents have a long-recognized constitutional right to “make

decisions concerning the care, custody, and control of their

children,” Troxel lends no concrete support to Plaintiffs’

specific argument in this case. Id. at 66. Troxel concerned a

state government’s interference with a mother’s decision

about the amount of visitation with her daughters’ paternal

grandparents that was in her daughters’ best interests; it did

not address the extent of parents’ rights to direct the policies

of the public schools that their children attend.16See id.

15 Although it does not affect the application of Fields to this case or

the merits of Plaintiffs’ substantive argument, it is worth noting that we

deleted the phrase “do[] not extend beyond the threshold of the school

door” from the Fields opinion upon denial of rehearing. See Fields, 427

F.3d at 1190–91.

16 Similarly, Plaintiffs’ reliance on Wisconsin v. Yoder, 406 U.S. 205

(1972), in their reply brief is unavailing. In that case, the Supreme Court

held that the state of Wisconsin could not compel Amish parents to send

their children to formal high school up to the age of 16, because as applied

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at 67–73. Moreover, we have previously explained that

although the Supreme Court “recognized that parents’ liberty

interest in the custody, care, and nurture of their children

resides ‘first’ in the parents, [it] does not reside there

exclusively, nor is it ‘beyond regulation [by the state] in the

public interest.’” Fields, 427 F.3d at 1204 (second alteration

in original) (quoting Prince, 321 U.S. at 166).

Next, Plaintiffs attempt to distinguish Fields, the Ninth

Circuit case on which the district court relied, by pointing out

that the instant case is not about curriculum, but rather “about

conduct authorized by the school allowing opposite-sex

students into privacy facilities.” Fields involved conduct

authorized by the school allowing a researcher to administer

a survey that included questions about sexual topics. Fields,

427 F.3d at 1200–01. We held that although “[p]arents have

a right to inform their children when and as they wish on the

subject of sex,” they “have no constitutional right . . . to

prevent a public school from providing its students with

whatever information it wishes to provide, sexual or

otherwise, when and as the school determines that it is

appropriate to do so.” Id. at 1206. While the purported risk

of Parent Plaintiffs’ children being exposed to the unclothed

bodies of students who were assigned the opposite sex at birth

does not involve the provision of information, as did Fields,

to the Amish parents in that case, doing so violated the Free Exercise

Clause of the First Amendment, and also interfered with “the traditional

interest of parents with respect to the religious upbringing of their

children.” Id. at 214; see also id. at 232–36. Yoder supports the district

court’s recognition that parents have the right to remove their children

from Dallas High School, but it does not support Plaintiffs’ assertion that

their parental rights go beyond that decision and extend to a right to

require a particular bathroom access policy for transgender students.

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it similarly involves students being exposed to things of

which their parents disapprove.

In any case, in Fields we adopted the Sixth Circuit’s view

that parents not only lack a constitutional right to direct the

curriculum that is taught to their children, but that they also

lack constitutionally protected rights to direct school

administration more generally. See id. at 1206 (rejecting a

“curriculum exception”). Specifically, we endorsed the Sixth

Circuit’s explanation that:

While parents may have a fundamental right

to decide whether to send their child to a

public school, they do not have a fundamental

right generally to direct how a public school

teaches their child. Whether it is the school

curriculum, the hours of the school day,

school discipline, the timing and content of

examinations, the individuals hired to teach at

the school, the extracurricular activities

offered at the school or . . . a dress code, these

issues of public education are generally

committed to the control of state and local

authorities.

Id. (internal quotation marks omitted) (quoting Blau v. Fort

Thomas Pub. Sch. Dist., 401 F.3d 381, 395–96 (6th Cir.

2005)). This binding precedent thus directly supports the

district court’s conclusion that Parent Plaintiffs lack a

fundamental right to direct Dallas High School’s bathroom

and locker room policy.

Plaintiffs nonetheless argue that, contrary to Fields, the

Supreme Court has extended parental rights into the

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classroom. Specifically, they argue that the Supreme Court

has ruled that students from Jehovah’s Witness families could

not be compelled to recite the Pledge of Allegiance at

school.17See W. Va. State Bd. of Educ. v. Barnette, 319 U.S.

624, 642 (1943). But that Supreme Court decision rested on

the First Amendment;18nowhere did the Supreme Court

reference the fundamental rights of parents to direct their

children’s upbringing.

19

See Barnette, 319 U.S. at 639, 642. 

Thus, Plaintiffs fail to cite any Supreme Court authority

17 Plaintiffs cite Minersville School District v. Gobitis, 310 U.S. 586,

for this proposition, but Gobitis actually held the opposite—namely, that

the government could require students to salute the flag. The Supreme

Court, however, overruled Gobitisthree years later in West Virginia State

Board of Education v. Barnette, 319 U.S. 624, 642 (1943). Thus, we

assume that Plaintiffs actually intended to cite Barnette, particularly

because their Gobitis’ pincite of “642” appears in Barnette, but not in

Gobitis.

18 Similarly, Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School

District, 393 U.S. 503 (1969), and Shelton v. Tucker, 364 U.S. 479 (1960),

both of which Plaintiffs cite in their reply, also rested on the First

Amendment and its protection of students’ and teachers’ freedoms of

speech and association.

19 Moreover, unlike the instant case, Barnette involved “a compulsion

of students to declare a belief.” Barnette, 319 U.S. at 631. The Student

Safety Plan does not compel a declaration of support for any particular

belief. And in Barnette, the Court also noted that the appellees’ asserted

freedom not to salute the flag “does not bring them into collision with

rights asserted by any other individual.” Id. at 630. Here, in contrast,

Plaintiffs’ asserted right not to be exposed to any risk of seeing in a state

of undress (or being seen by) any person who was assigned the opposite

sex at birth does “bring them into collision with rights asserted by . . .

other[s],” namely the rights of transgender students to use the locker

rooms that match their gender identity and to avoid being subject to

discrimination based on gender stereotypes regarding the sex assigned to

them at birth. See id.

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showing that parents’ substantive due process rights under the

Fourteenth Amendment encompass a right to direct the

curriculum, administration, or policies of public schools.

Finally, perhaps recognizing the lack of supporting case

law, Plaintiffs argue that the following items both “undercut[]

the district court’s unprincipled expansion of Fields” and

support the constitutional parental rights that Plaintiffs assert: 

(1) that “no one would seriously suggest [that] parents lack

any means to assure their students are free from physical

assault, coercive threats[,] or criminal activity”; (2) that

“federal law and Oregon law confer on parents the right to

inspect instructional materials upon request”; (3) that

Congress in 2002 “enacted a federal law that no student can

be required to take a survey concerning sexual behavior or

attitudes unless the school provides parents with the survey

before administering the survey to students and receives

consent to administer the survey”; and (4) that “many states,

including Oregon, have in place laws regulating public school

education that require schools to allow parents to opt their

children out of certain situations concerning sexual right [sic]

and sex education.” However, those assertions, even if true,

do not establish that the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due

Process Clause protects the right asserted by Plaintiffs in this

case. Although state and federal statutes may expand upon

constitutional protections by creating new statutory rights,

statutes do not alter the protections afforded by the

Constitution itself.20

20 Plaintiffs provide no citation suggesting that the statutes they cite

were enacted in order to enforce existing constitutional parental rights. 

Rather, the opposite inference—that the statutes were enacted to create

rights specifically because the Constitution does not protect such

rights—may be the more reasonable one. Cf. Holt v. Hobbs, 135 S. Ct.

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In sum, Plaintiffs fail to cite any authority that supports

their asserted fundamental Fourteenth Amendment parental

right to “determine whether and when their children will have

to risk being exposed to opposite sex nudity at school” and

“whether their children, while at school, will have to risk

exposing their own undressed or partially unclothed bodies to

members of the opposite sex” in “intimate, vulnerable

settings like restrooms, locker rooms and showers.” In fact,

Fields makes clear that the fundamental right to control the

upbringing of one’s children does not extend so far as

Plaintiffs’ hypothesize. See Fields, 427 F.3d at 1206–07. 

Plaintiffs neither distinguish this precedent nor address the

practical issue raised by Fields: that accommodating the

different “personal, moral, or religious concerns of every

parent” would be “impossible” for public schools, because

different parents would often likely, as in this case, prefer

opposite and contradictory outcomes. Id. at 1206. As a

result, Plaintiffs’ legal theory fails. Considering that

Supreme Court and Ninth Circuit case law not only have not

recognized the specific rights asserted by Plaintiffs, but

further forecloses recognizing such rights as being

encompassed by the fundamental parental rights protected by

the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause,

amendment of this claim would be futile.

For the foregoing reasons, we affirm the district court’s

dismissal with prejudice of this claim.

853, 859–60 (2015) (“Following our decision in Employment Division,

Department of Human Resources of Oregon v. Smith, 494 U.S. 872

(1990), Congress enacted [the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of

1993] in order to provide greater protection for religious exercise than is

available under the First Amendment.”).

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D.

Fourth, Plaintiffs contend that the district court erred in

dismissing their claim for violation of their First Amendment

free exercise rights.

The First Amendment provides that “Congress shall make

no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting

the free exercise thereof . . . .” U.S. Const., amend. I. “The

free exercise of religion means, first and foremost, the right

to believe and profess whatever religious doctrine one

desires.” Emp’t Div., Dep’t of Human Res. of Or. v. Smith,

494 U.S. 872 877 (1990), superseded by statute in other

contexts as stated in Holt, 135 S. Ct. at 859–60. The

Supreme Court has explained that the First Amendment 

“obviously excludes all ‘governmental regulation of religious

beliefs as such,’” meaning that “[t]he government may not

compel affirmation of religious belief, punish the expression

of religious doctrines it believes to be false, impose special

disabilities on the basis of religious views or religious status,

or lend its power to one or the other side in controversies over

religious authority or dogma.” Id. (citations omitted)

(quoting Sherbert v. Verner, 374 U.S. 398, 402 (1963)). The

Supreme Court has also suggested that the government would

interfere with the free exercise of religion impermissibly if it

sought to ban the performance of or abstention from certain

physical acts, but “only when [those acts] are engaged in for

religious reasons, or only because of the religious belief that

they display.” Id. Nevertheless, the “freedom to act”

pursuant to one’s religious beliefs “cannot be” absolute;

“[c]onduct remains subject to regulation for the protection of

society.” Stormans, Inc. v. Selecky, 586 F.3d 1109, 1128 (9th

Cir. 2009) (citing Cantwell v. Connecticut, 310 U.S. 296,

303–04 (1940)). Thus, “[t]he Cantwell right to freely

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exercise one’s religion . . . ‘does not relieve an individual of

the obligation to comply with a “valid and neutral law of

general applicability on the ground that the law proscribes (or

prescribes) conduct that his [or her] religion prescribes (or

proscribes).”’” Id. at 1127 (quoting Smith, 494 U.S. at 879).

Here, Plaintiffs claim that the Student SafetyPlan violates

their First Amendment rights to freely exercise their religion

because the Student Safety Plan forces them to be exposed to

an environment in school bathrooms and locker facilities that

conflicts with, and prevents them from fully practicing, their

religious beliefs. Specifically, the complaint alleges that

many Student Plaintiffs and some Parent Plaintiffs “have the

sincere religious belief” that children “must not undress, or

use the restroom, in the presence of a member of the opposite

biological sex, and also that they must not be in the presence

of the opposite biological sex while the opposite biological

sex is undressing or using the restroom.” Because the

Student Safety Plan permits transgender students who were

assigned the opposite biological sex at birth into their locker

rooms, the Plan “prevents Student Plaintiffs from practicing

the modesty that their faith requires of them, and it further

interferes with Parent Plaintiffs teaching their children

traditional modesty and insisting that their children practice

modesty, as their faith requires.” Plaintiffs further assert that,

as a result, “[c]omplying with the requirements of the Student

Safety Plan . . . places a substantial burden on the Plaintiffs’

exercise of religion by requiring Plaintiffs to choose between

the benefit of a free public education and violating their

religious beliefs.”

The district court dismissed this claim on the basis that

the Student Safety Plan was neutral and generally applicable

with respect to religion, noting that “neutral, generally

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applicable laws that incidentally burden the exercise of

religion usually do not violate the Free Exercise Clause of the

First Amendment” because they need only be “rationally

related to a legitimate government interest.” Parents for

Privacy, 326 F. Supp. 3d at 1110 (quoting Holt, 135 S. Ct. at

859) (citing Church of the Lukumi Babalu Aye, Inc. v. City of

Hialeah, 508 U.S. 520, 531 (1993)). The district court

rejected Plaintiffs’ assertion that, because the Plan pertains

specifically to Student A, the Plan is not generally applicable. 

Id. The court, citing Lukumi, 508 U.S. at 532–33, explained

that “Plaintiffs misunderstand the law,” because neutrality

and general applicability are “considered with respect to

religion” rather than with respect to the person or groups to

which the law most directly pertains. Parents for Privacy,

326 F. Supp. 3d at 1110. Because the District’s Plan did not

force any Plaintiff to embrace a religious belief and did not

punish anyone for expressing their religious beliefs, the

district court concluded that the Plan is “neutral and generally

applicable with respect to religion,” and therefore did not

violate Plaintiffs’ First Amendment rights. Id.

On appeal, Plaintiffs argue that the district court should

have applied strict scrutiny because, contrary to the district

court’s conclusion, the Student Safety Plan is not neutral or

generally applicable. Plaintiffs point out that the Student

Safety Plan was implemented to benefit one student in

particular, and they claim, without any supporting citation,

that “a policy implemented for a single student is not

generally applicable.” Plaintiffs do not address the district

court’s reasoning that neutrality and general applicability are

considered with respect to religion. Nor does their argument

acknowledge that the Plan applies to all transgender students,

not just to Student A; that is, the argument does not

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distinguish between an event that triggered development of a

policy and the breadth of the resulting policy itself.

In assessing neutrality and general applicability, courts

evaluate both “the text of the challenged law as well as the

effect . . . in its real operation.” Storman, Inc. v. Wiesman,

794 F.3d 1064, 1076 (9th Cir. 2015) (ellipsis in original)

(internal quotation marks omitted). As the district court

correctly explained, the two tests for whether a law is neutral

and generally applicable focus on whether a law specifically

targets or singles out religion. See Parents for Privacy,

326 F. Supp. 3d at 1110; Lukumi, 508 U.S. at 532 (“[T]he

protections of the Free Exercise Clause pertain if the law at

issue discriminates against some or all religious beliefs or

regulates or prohibits conduct because it is undertaken for

religious reasons.”).

First, “if the object of a law is to infringe upon or restrict

practices because of their religious motivation, the law is not

neutral.” Selecky, 586 F.3d at 1130 (emphasis added)

(quoting Lukumi, 508 U.S. at 533). For example, “[a] law

lacks facial neutrality if it refers to a religious practice

without a secular meaning discernable from the language or

context.” Lukumi, 508 U.S. at 533. Even if a law is facially

neutral, it may nonetheless fail the neutrality test if “[t]he

record . . . compels the conclusion that suppression of [a

religion or religious practice] was the object of the

ordinances.” Id. at 534, 542. Thus, in Lukumi, the Supreme

Court concluded that an animal ordinance that in its operation

effectively banned only the ritual animal sacrifice performed

by practitioners of the Santeria religion, was not neutral

because it accomplished a “religious gerrymander,” i.e., an

impermissible attempt to target religious practices through

careful legislative drafting. See id. at 535–37.

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Here, on the other hand, Plaintiffs’ complaint contains no

allegation suggesting that the Student Safety Plan was

adopted with the object of suppressing the exercise of

religion. To the contrary, Plaintiffs allege that the District

developed and implemented the Student Safety Plan in

“response to the threat of [federal] enforcement action” and

in “response to Student A’s complaints for accommodation.” 

Moreover, the Student Safety Plan “make[s] no reference to

any religious practice, conduct, belief, or motivation.” See

Wiesman, 794 F.3d at 1076. Instead, the Plan itself states that

it was “created to support a transgender male expressing the

right to access the boy’s locker room at Dallas High School.” 

Plaintiffs do not counter this evidence or point to anything in

the record suggesting that the Student Safety Plan was

adopted with the specific purpose of infringing on Plaintiffs’

religious practices or suppressing Plaintiffs’ religion. 

Accordingly, the district court correctly concluded that the

Student Safety Plan is neutral for purposes of analyzing the

free exercise claim.

Second, the question of general applicability addresses

whether a law treats religious observers unequally. See

Lukumi, 508 U.S. at 542. For example, “inequality results

when a legislature decides that the governmental interests it

seeks to advance are worthy of being pursued only against

conduct with a religious motivation.” Id. at 542–43. Thus,

“[a] law is not generally applicable if its prohibitions

substantiallyunderinclude non-religiouslymotivated conduct

that might endanger the same governmental interest that the

law is designed to protect.” Wiesman, 794 F.3d at 1079

(citing Lukumi, 508 U.S. at 542–46). “In other words, if a

law pursues the government’s interest ‘only against conduct

motivated by religious belief,’ but fails to include in its

prohibitions substantial, comparable secular conduct that

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would similarly threaten the government’s interest, then the

law is not generally applicable.” Id. (quoting Lukumi,

508 U.S. at 545). For example, in Lukumi, the Court

concluded that the challenged ordinances were not generally

applicable because they “pursue[d] the city’s governmental

interests only against conduct motivated by religious belief”

and “fail[ed] to prohibit nonreligious conduct that

endanger[ed] these interests in a similar or greater degree

than Santeria sacrifice does.” Lukumi, 508 U.S. at 543, 545;

see also Selecky, 586 F.3d at 1134.

Here, the Student Safety Plan is not underinclusive,

because it does not require only religious students to share a

locker room with a transgender student who was assigned the

opposite sex at birth, nor does the Plan require only religious

teachers and staff to receive training or to teach about antibullying and harassment. In other words, the Student Safety

Plan affects all students and staff—it does not place demands

on exclusively religious persons or conduct. Plaintiffs’

singular argument that the Student Safety Plan is

underinclusive because it was aimed at a particular student

and does not allow every student to use the facilities of their

choosing regardless of biological sex or self-identified gender

misses the mark because it misunderstands the applicable test. 

Underinclusiveness is determined with respect to the burdens

on religious and non-religious conduct and the interests

sought to be advanced by the policy. That the Student Safety

Plan focuses on transgender students rather than allowing all

students to claim a right to use whichever facility they wish

regardless of gender is irrelevant because that alleged

underinclusion is not related to the interests furthered by the

plan, and Plaintiffs have not tied it to burdens on secular

versus religious conduct. The correct inquiry here is whether,

in seeking to create a safe, non-discriminatory school

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environment for transgender students, the Student SafetyPlan

selectively imposes certain conditions or restrictions only on

religious conduct. Because Plaintiffs have not made any

showing that the Plan does so, the district court correctly

determined that the Plan is generally applicable for purposes

of the free exercise analysis. See Parents for Privacy, 326 F.

Supp. 3d at 1110.

Because the Student Safety Plan qualifies as neutral and

generally applicable, it is not subject to strict scrutiny. See

Selecky, 586 F.3d at 1129 (“[A] neutral law of general

applicability will not be subject to strict scrutiny review.”);

see also Smith, 494 U.S. at 888 (“Precisely because we are a

cosmopolitan nation made up of people of almost every

conceivable religious preference, and precisely because we

value and protect that religious divergence, we cannot afford

the luxury of deeming presumptively invalid, as applied to the

religious objector, every regulation of conduct that does not

protect an interest of the highest order.” (citation and internal

quotation marks omitted)).

Plaintiffs argue that strict scrutiny should nevertheless

apply because this suit concerns the alleged infringement of

multiple constitutional rights. Relying on Smith, 494 U.S. at

882, they argue that “[w]here, as here, plaintiffs allege

multiple fundamental rights arising under the First and

Fourteenth Amendments (bodily privacy, parental rights and

free exercise rights), hybrid rights analysis requires strict

scrutiny as well.” The district court rejected this argument

because it had already dismissed Plaintiffs’ other

constitutional claims. See Parents for Privacy, 326 F. Supp.

3d at 1110 n.10. For the following reasons, we agree with

the district court that Plaintiffs’ argument—that strict scrutiny

is required simply because Plaintiffs alleged multiple

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constitutional claims concerning fundamental rights—fails

here.

The extent to which the hybrid rights exception truly

exists, and what standard applies to it, is unclear. In Smith,

the Court noted that “[t]he only decisions in which we have

held that the First Amendment bars application of a neutral,

generally applicable law to religiously motivated action have

involved not the Free Exercise Clause alone, but the Free

Exercise Clause in conjunction with other constitutional

protections.” Smith, 494 U.S. at 881. However, Smith did

“not present such a hybrid situation,” and thus the Court did

not further explain how a hybrid rights scenario should be

scrutinized. See id. at 882. The Ninth Circuit subsequently

discussed the nature of “hybrid rights” at length, and a threejudge panel majority concluded that, “[i]n order to trigger

strict scrutiny, a hybrid-rights plaintiff must show a ‘fair

probability’—a ‘likelihood’—of success on the merits of his

companion claim.” Thomas v. Anchorage Equal Rights

Comm’n, 165 F.3d 692, 706 (9th Cir.), reh’g granted, opinion

withdrawn, 192 F.3d 1208 (9th Cir. 1999). The dissent,

however, noted that “there is real doubt whether the hybridrights exception even exists” because “the Supreme Court

itself has never explicitly held that it exists.” Id. at 722–23

(Hawkins, J., dissenting). “[T]he paragraph in Smith

purporting to carve out a hybrid-rights exception is dicta,”

“the Supreme Court in Smith did not announce a different test

for hybrid-rights cases,” and “[e]ven the cases which the

Supreme Court cited as involving ‘hybrid rights’ did not

explicitly refer to or invoke strict scrutiny or a compelling

government interest test.” Id. at 723–24. In any case, that

opinion discussing the appropriate hybrid rights test in our

Circuit was withdrawn upon granting rehearing en banc, and

the en banc court did not address the hybrid rights issue. See

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Thomas v. Anchorage Equal Rights Comm’n, 220 F.3d 1134,

1148 (9th Cir. 2000) (en banc) (noting that “we postpone . . .

application of [Smith’s] newly developed hybrid rights

doctrine”) (O’Scannlain, J., concurring).

Moreover, Miller v. Reed, the Ninth Circuit case that

Plaintiffs cite as the basis for the hybrid rights exception in

our Circuit, was decided after the panel opinion in Thomas

was issued, but before the three-judge opinion was withdrawn

upon granting rehearing en banc. See Miller v. Reed,

176 F.3d 1202 (9th Cir. 1999). Thus, no weight can be given

to Miller’s citation to the Thomas panel opinion for the

suggestion that the hybrid rights exception has been

established in our Circuit. See id. at 1207 (“[W]e recently

held that, to assert a hybrid-rights claim, ‘a free exercise

plaintiff must make out a “colorable claim” that a companion

right has been violated—that is, a “fair probability” or a

“likelihood,” but not a certitude, of success on the merits.’”

(quoting Thomas, 165 F.3d at 703, 707)). There is therefore

no binding Ninth Circuit authority deciding the issue of

whether the hybrid rights exception exists and requires strict

scrutiny.

Nonetheless, we need not resolve that question now,

because even if a hybrid rights exception does exist, it would

not apply in this case. For the reasons discussed in the

Thomas panel opinion, allegingmultiple failing constitutional

claims that do not have a likelihood of success on the merits

cannot be enough to invoke a hybrid rights exception and

require strict scrutiny. See Thomas, 165 F.3d at 703–07; cf.

id. at 705 (“[A] plaintiff invoking Smith’s hybrid exception

must make out a ‘colorable claim’ that a companion right has

been infringed.”); Miller, 176 F.3d at 1207–08 (collecting

cases and noting that “[o]ther circuits have adopted . . .

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predicates for a hybrid-rights claim” that are “similar or more

stringent” than the standard adopted in Thomas, and holding

that “a plaintiff does not allege a hybrid-rights claim entitled

to strict scrutiny analysis merely by combining a free exercise

claim with an utterly meritless claim of the violation of

another alleged fundamental right or a claim of an alleged

violation of a non-fundamental or non-existent right”). As

explained earlier in this opinion, Plaintiffs have not

established colorable companion claims—they have not

shown even a likelihood of success, which is why their claims

were all dismissed with prejudice. Thus, even if the hybrid

rights exception does exist, it would not apply to require strict

scrutiny in this case. Alternatively, if the hybrid rights

exception does not actually exist, then, of course, it cannot

apply to this case to require strict scrutiny of Plaintiffs’

purported hybrid claims. Cf. Leebaert v. Harrington,

332 F.3d 134, 143 (2d Cir. 2003) (“Several circuits have

stated that Smith mandates stricter scrutiny for hybrid

situations than for a free exercise claim standing alone, but,

as far as we are able to tell, no circuit has yet actually applied

strict scrutiny based on this theory.”); Catholic Charities of

Sacramento, Inc. v. Superior Court, 85 P.3d 67, 88 (Cal.

2004) (explaining that a rule requiring only a “colorable” and

not an “ultimately meritorious” companion claim would not

make sense because it would allow the hybrid exception to

swallow the Smith rule, and noting that the California

Supreme Court was “aware of no decision in which a federal

court has actually relied solely on the hybrid rights theory to

justify applying strict scrutiny to a free exercise claim”).

In sum, whether the hybrid rights exception exists and

requires at least a colorable companion claim, or whether it

does not really exist at all—an issue that we do not resolve

here—Plaintiffs’ argument that the hybrid rights exception

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requires that we apply strict scrutiny to their free exercise

claim fails. Because strict scrutiny does not apply, we also

need not address Plaintiffs’ arguments about narrow tailoring.

Instead, we review the Plan for a rational basis, which

means that the Plan must be upheld if it is rationally related

to a legitimate governmental purpose. See Wiesman,

794 F.3d at 1084; see also Selecky, 586 F.3d at 1127–28

(“Under the governing standard, ‘a law that is neutral and of

general applicability need not be justified by a compelling

governmental interest even if the law has the incidental effect

of burdening a particular religious practice.’” (quoting

Lukumi, 508 U.S. at 531)). “Plaintiffs ‘have the burden to

negate every conceivable basis which might support [the

Plan].’” Wiesman, 794 F.3d at 1084 (brackets omitted)

(quoting FCC v. Beach Commc’ns, Inc., 508 U.S. 307, 315

(1993)). They fail to meet that burden, because they fail to

negate what the record makes clear: the Student Safety Plan

is rationally related to the legitimate purpose of protecting

student safety and well-being, and eliminating discrimination

on the basis of sex and transgender status. Cf. New York v.

Ferber, 458 U.S. 747, 756–57 (1982) (explaining that “a

State’s interest in ‘safeguarding the physical and

psychological well-being of a minor’ is ‘compelling’”

(quoting Globe Newspaper Co. v. Superior Court, 457 U.S.

596, 607 (1982))); Goehring v. Brophy, 94 F.3d 1294, 1300

(9th Cir. 1996) (holding that a university had a compelling

interest in the “health and well-being of its students”).21

21 In their arguments regarding the compelling governmental interest

that would be required if we were to apply strict scrutiny, Plaintiffs argue

that “[t]he relevant government interest . . . cannot be a general interest in

prohibiting discrimination because that position has already been rejected

by the Supreme Court in Hurley v. Irish-American Gay, Lesbian &

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PARENTS FOR PRIVACY V. BARR 53

Plaintiffs’ argument that the Supreme Court has also

recognized bodily privacy as a compelling interest is

unavailing, because it does not negate the fact that the

Student Safety Plan has a rational basis. Thus, we conclude

that because the Student Safety Plan is neutral, generally

applicable, and rationallyrelated to a legitimate governmental

purpose, the Plan does not impermissibly burden Plaintiffs’

First Amendment free exercise rights. See Wiesman,

794 F.3d at 1085. And because Plaintiffs have not shown that

any new factual allegations could alter these conclusions

based on settled precedent, amendment would be futile.

Bisexual Group of Boston, 515 U.S. 557, 573 (1995).” But Hurley is

inapposite because that was a free speech case; the Supreme Court’s

suggestion in Hurley that a broad statutory objective of forbidding

discriminatory speech in public parades would be “fatal” because “[o]ur

tradition of free speech commands that a speaker who takes to the street

corner to express his views in this way should be free from interference by

the State based on the content of what he says” is hardly surprising or

controversial. See id. at 578–79. That statement in Hurley certainly does

not preclude the District here from asserting an interest in providing an

accommodating and safe school environment for transgender students and

assuring that they do not suffer the stigmatizing injury of discrimination

by being denied access to multi-user bathrooms that match their gender

identity. And in fact, the Supreme Court has recognized repeatedly that

the government has a compelling interest “of the highest order” in

“eliminating discrimination and assuring its citizens equal access to

publicly available goods and services.” Roberts v. U.S. Jaycees, 468 U.S.

609, 624 (1984); see also id. at 623, 628 (noting that “acts of invidious

discrimination in the distribution of publiclyavailable goods,services, and

other advantages cause unique evils that government has a compelling

interest to prevent,” and holding that “Minnesota’s compelling interest in

eradicating discrimination against its female citizens justifies the impact

that application of the statute to the Jaycees may have on the male

members’ associational freedoms”). 

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For the foregoing reasons, we affirm the dismissal with

prejudice of Plaintiffs’ First Amendment free exercise claim.

V.

Finally, Plaintiffs argue that the district court erred in

failing to allow Plaintiffs leave to replead. Although

Plaintiffs correctly point out that leave to amend should be

liberally granted if the complaint can be saved by

amendment, Plaintiffs have not shown, either in their briefing

or at oral argument, how they could amend their complaint to

remedy the many legal deficiencies in their claims. Instead,

Plaintiffs simply argue that their complaint, as currently

alleged, is sufficient to state their claims because their claims

“were not conclusory; rather, they were extensive, wellarticulated statements of fact that clearly pleaded claims for

relief” and “exceeded both the Twombly and Iqbal standards.”

The problem with Plaintiffs’ complaint, however, is not

the sufficiency of their factual allegations. Rather, as we

have explained above, Plaintiffs’ legal theories fail. 

Amending the complaint will not change, for example, the

extent of the rights that are protected by the Fourteenth

Amendment’s Due Process Clause. As a result, we affirm the

district court’s denial of leave to amend.22 Further

22 Because we affirm the dismissal with prejudice of Plaintiffs’

complaint, we do not reach the district court’s determination that

Plaintiffs’ requested relief—a court order requiring transgender students

to use single-user facilities or facilities that match their biological

sex—would itself violate Title IX because it “would punish transgender

students for their gender nonconformity and constitute a form of

[impermissible] sex-stereotyping.” Parents for Privacy, 326 F. Supp. 3d

at 1106 (citing Whitaker ex rel. Whitaker, 858 F.3d at 1048–50.

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amendment would simply be a futile exercise. See V.V.V. &

Sons Edible Oils. Ltd., 946 F.3d at 547.

VI.

In summary, we hold that Dallas School District No. 2’s

carefully-crafted Student Safety Plan seeks to avoid

discrimination and ensure the safety and well-being of

transgender students; it does not violate Title IX or any of

Plaintiffs’ cognizable constitutional rights. A policy that

allows transgender students to use school bathroom and

locker facilities that match their self-identified gender in the

same manner that cisgender students utilize those facilities

does not infringe Fourteenth Amendment privacy or parental

rights or First Amendment free exercise rights, nor does it

create actionable sex harassment under Title IX.

Accordingly, Plaintiffs have failed to state a federal claim

upon which relief can be granted. The judgment of the

district court is

AFFIRMED.

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