Impact Fund Awards Grant to Wardenski P.C. to Support Transgender Student Rights Suit Against South Carolina

Doe v. South CarolinaEducationLGBTQ EqualityTrans Rights

May 30

Wardenski P.C. has been awarded a $25,000 grant by the Impact Fund to support the firm’s work on Doe v. State of South Carolina, a federal civil rights lawsuit challenging a discriminatory South Carolina law that denies transgender public school students access to school restrooms matching their gender identities. The law, known as Budget Proviso 1.120, was enacted in July 2024 and prohibits public K-12 school districts in South Carolina from allowing transgender students from accessing appropriate sex-specific school facilities under the threat of a revocation of state funding.

The class action lawsuit, filed in November 2024, was brought on behalf of John Doe, a transgender middle school student in the Berkeley County School District (the “District”) who was denied access to boys’ restrooms because of the challenged law, and the Alliance for Full Acceptance, a nonprofit LGBTQ+ rights organization based in Charleston, South Carolina. The suit seeks preliminary and permanent injunctions barring defendants — several state agencies and officials, the District, and the District’s superintendent — from enforcing Proviso 1.120, which violates transgender students’ rights under federal civil rights laws. The suit asserts that Defendants are willfully violating a 2020 decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, which held that denying transgender students access to gender-appropriate restrooms violates both Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 and the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause.

The Impact Fund grant will be used to support the firm’s out-of-pocket litigation costs in the case, including expert witness expenses.

Wardenski P.C. is grateful for the Impact Fund’s generous support in this important case and its recognition of the critical need to protect transgender students’ rights in court at a time when those rights are under attack.

The firm is proud to co-counsel on this case with Public Justice’s Students' Civil Rights Project, Correia & Puth PLLC, and Milberg Coleman Bryson Phillips Grossman, PLLC.