BERKS COUNTY, Pa. – A Boyertown High School student and his parents have filed a federal lawsuit accusing the Berks County school district of deliberately violating his right to privacy by exposing him to a female student undressing in the boys locker rooom.
According to the lawsuit without any notice to students or parents, the school district secretly opened its schools’ sex-specific restrooms and locker rooms to students of the opposite sex. When the student, identified in the lawsuit as “Joel Doe,” was standing in his underwear about to put on his gym clothes, he suddenly noticed that a female student, also in a state of undress, was in the locker room.
The male student brought a complaint to school officials, who informed him that they now allow students who subjectively identify themselves as the opposite sex to choose whichever locker room they wish to use. He asked officials to protect his privacy, but they instead told him twice that he must “tolerate” it and make changing with students of the opposite sex as “natural” as he can.
Attorneys representing Alliance Defending Freedom and the Independence Law Center, Washington, D.C., are co-counsel in the lawsuit, filed in federal district court in Philadelphia. The suit named as defendants the Boyertown School District, Dr. Richard Faidley, superintendent; Dr. Brett Cooper, principal; and Dr. E. Wayne Foley, assistant principal.
