A transgender student at Central Piedmont Community College is claiming rights violations after school security escorted this individual off campus for using the women’s bathroom.

Scott Jaschik of Inside Higher Ed files this report:

When the U.S. Education and Justice Departments last year found that a California school district violated Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 by barring a transgender student from sex-specific facilities and activities, experts said that colleges needed to take note. Even though the case involved elementary and secondary education, the precedent apparently applied to higher education as well.

A case at Central Piedmont Community College may illuminate the conflicts between transgender students and some colleges.

Andraya Williams, a transgender student at the college, was detained by security officers and escorted off campus after she used the women’s bathroom. The LGBTQ Law Center is demanding that the college apologize and affirm her right to use the women’s bathroom, which would be consistent with her gender identity. If the college doesn’t change its policies, the center plans to file a complaint with the U.S. Education Department, alleging Title IX violations.

But the college is defending its handling of the incident. Both the college and Williams agree that she was questioned by first one security officer and then several more after she used the women’s bathroom. The college — while refusing to say what gender it considers Williams to be — says that its rules would bar someone who originally registered as a man and who subsequently identifies as a woman from using the women’s bathroom.

Jeff Lowrance, a spokesman for the college, said that the officer approached a student who “she thought was a male dressed as a female going into a female bathroom. The officer approached the student and asked to see an ID, and student refused to provide one, and another officer came, and this time the student waved ID but didn’t hand it over.” At that point, other officers came and escorted the student (Lowrance didn’t identify the student, but responded to questions about Williams) off the campus. The next day the student was told that she could continue her courses “in good standing.’

Lowrance said that this was not discrimination, but “simply a case of our security officer who didn’t want to allow a male into the female bathroom.”