Single-sex class lawsuit still alive against Vermilion Parish School Board

A federal appeals court has refused to kill a legal challenge to single-sex classes in a middle school in Vermilion Parish.

A three-judge panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday instead sent the suit by a parent of two girls attending Rene Rost Middle School in Kaplan back to a federal judge.

In April 2010, U.S. District Judge Richard Haik of Lafayette ruled that all-boys and all-girls classes at Rene Rost Middle School could continue under court-mandated conditions addressing errors in the program’s planning and implementation for the 2009-10 school year.

The 5th Circuit said that Haik should proceed with hearings to determine the overall legality of single-sex classes. The appeals court denied the parent’s motion to stop the classes for the time being.

Six months ago, attorneys for the American Civil Liberties Union went before a federal appeals court in hopes of stopping what they say is an unconstitutional system of sex-segregated classes at a southern Louisiana school.

The ACLU filed a federal suit in 2009 against the Vermilion Parish School District on behalf of an unnamed parent whose two daughters were placed in single-sex classes at Rene A. Rost Middle School in Kaplan. But the ACLU lost a round in April when a federal district court refused to grant a preliminary order blocking the practice, pending a full trial.

Six months ago attorneys for the school system told a three-judge 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel the appeal should be dismissed, noting that one of the girls is no longer at the school, that the other is not in a single sex class, and that the system of classes has been changed to accommodate those who prefer coeducational classes.

Mark Friedman, a lawyer working with the ACLU, argued that the school system still has offered no adequate justification for the program and that those who choose not to take part in the single sex classes aren’t assured of equal educational opportunities.

“It’s the same program,” Friedman said of the current system at Rost in the trial six months ago. “Just with some tweaks from last year.”

In briefs, school officials said the sex-segregated classes at issue last year were voluntary. The ACLU disagreed, saying the co-educational classes were special-needs classes and mostly male.

The ACLU argues that the gender-segregated classes at Rost violated federal law known as Title IX that prohibits discrimination based on sex, as well as the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution.

The ACLU said that the district court ignored the Title IX claims and mistakenly ruled that the Equal Protection argument didn’t apply because the district did not mean to cause harm to the students.

In briefs, the ACLU argued that the school system was required to show that it had an “important governmental interest” that was served by offering sex-segregated classes.

School officials have argued that there is evidence that single-sex classes can benefit students.