The US Supreme Court declined Monday to hear a case asking whether a North Carolina charter school mandating girls wear skirts should be held to the same standard as public schools, which does not permit such a practice. The case, Charter Day School, Inc. v. Peltier centers around a question of civil rights laws as applied to public and private schools. 

The lawsuit was initially brought in the US District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina Southern Division by Bonnie Peltier, whose daughter was a kindergarten student at Charter Day School (CDS), which is a tuition-free public school. Peltier challenged the constitutionality of the school’s dress code, which required that girls wear skirts, skorts, or jumpers, while allowing boys to wear pants or shorts.

The district court granted summary judgment to Peltier on an equal protection claim but found that Title IX does not apply to school dress codes. However, the Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit reversed both holdings. In an en banc rehearing, the court reasoned that CDS was a state actor and ruled:

By implementing the skirts requirement based on blatant gender stereotypes about the “proper place” for girls and women in society, CDS has acted in clear violation of the Equal Protection Clause. We further hold that sex-based dress codes like the skirts requirement, when imposed by covered entities, are subject to review under the anti-discrimination provisions of Title IX. We therefore affirm the district court’s award of summary judgment to the plaintiffs on their Equal Protection claim against CDS and affirm the court’s award of summary judgment to RBA on that claim. We vacate the district court’s judgment on the Title IX claim and remand for an evidentiary hearing on that claim asserted against all defendants.

The court’s denial of CDS’s petition for certiorari means that the appeals court’s decision will stand, effectively barring the charter school from enforcing the skirt mandate. Prior to making its decision, the court received an amicus brief from the Department of Justice, urging it to reject the argument that public charter schools should be exempt civil rights laws.

In response to the court’s denial, President and CEO of the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools Nina Rees expressed her approval in a statement that reads: “The actions of the high court affirm that as public school students, charter school students are entitled to the same federal protections as their counterparts who attend district schools.”