Page:Adams ex rel. Kasper v. School Board of St. Johns County, Florida (2022).pdf/107

 D.Procedural History

After his sophomore year at Nease, Adams filed this lawsuit against the School Board. Adams claimed that his exclusion as a transgender boy from the boys’ restrooms at Nease violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution and Title IX of the Education Amendments Act [sic] of 1972, 20 U.S.C. § 1681 et seq. The district court held a three-day bench trial. In a 70-page opinion containing its findings of fact and conclusions of law, the district court ruled for Adams on both claims. The district court awarded Adams $1,000 in compensatory damages and enjoined the School Board of St. Johns County from barring Adams from using the boys’ restrooms at Nease.

The School Board appealed. A panel of this Court affirmed the district court’s judgment on both the equal protection and Title IX claims with one member of the panel writing in dissent. See Adams ex rel. Kasper v. Sch. Bd. of St. Johns Cnty. (Adams I), 968 F.3d 1286 (11th Cir. 2020). A member of the Court then withheld the mandate. The panel majority sua sponte withdrew its opinion and issued a revised majority opinion over another dissent. See Adams ex rel. Kasper v. Sch. Bd. of St. Johns Cnty. (Adams II), 3 F.4th 1299 (11th Cir. 2021). The revised panel opinion affirmed the district court’s judgment on narrower grounds in an effort to gain broader consensus among members of the Court. Id. at 1304. A member of the Court nevertheless continued to withhold the mandate.

A majority of the Court then voted to rehear Adams’s case en banc. Our en banc proceedings resulted in the above majority