as young as 14.”

The U.S. Department of Justice joins District 211 and the Department of Education as defendants in the lawsuit.

District 211 Superintendent Dan Cates issued a statement later Wednesday saying the district “affirms and supports the identity of all our students.”

“The district has faithfully honored our agreement with the Office for Civil Rights, and our students have shown acceptance, support and respect of each other,” the statement continues. “We have implemented the agreement without any reports of incident or issue. Individual changing stalls in our locker rooms are readily available to every student, and further accommodations that provide even greater privacy remain available upon request.”

The ACLU — which represented the student in her fight to locker room access — also issued a statement, calling the lawsuit “a sad development by groups opposed to fair and humane treatment of all students, including those who are transgender.”

“We expect that today’s lawsuit will meet the same unsuccessful end as the previous efforts to peddle fear and divisiveness,” the ACLU statement reads. “We are confident that fairness for students who are transgender will prevail.”

Sparked by the federal complaint of a transgender student, the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights determined last fall that District 211’s practice of having the student change clothes in a separate area for gym class and sports was discriminatory because it treated the student differently from other girls. The transgender student was born male but identifies as female.

The OCR stated that if District 211 did not change its practice, it could risk losing approximately $6 million in federal funding each year.

District 211 proposed a compromise in which the student would be allowed in the girls locker room as long as she always used a private changing stall. An agreement to that effect was approved in early December by a 5-2 vote of the District 211 school board.

Additional privacy stalls were installed in the locker room for other students to use if they wish.

But representatives of Parents for Privacy and New Hope Community Church in Palatine have continued to speak out against the agreement at school board meetings, arguing that it infringes on privacy rights of other students.

Jeremy Tedesco, an attorney for the plaintiffs, said the lawsuit acknowledges the presence of privacy stalls but argues that they’re inadequate. The law dictates that privacy begins at the locker room door, not at the stalls within, he said.

Though District 211 has transgender students at all five of its high schools, the OCR agreement applies only to the student who filed the complaint and will expire when she graduates. Tedesco said the plaintiffs will seek a preliminary injunction to reverse the district policy for the year remaining before the student graduates.

The district’s administrative board policy group last week recommended against adopting a districtwide policy on transgender access to locker rooms and restrooms. Representatives said any policy not fully endorsed by the OCR would put the district back in the same position it was in before the December agreement.

Meanwhile, the district is continuing its practice of finding special accommodations for students that request them on a case-by-case basis.