The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday declined to let South Carolina enforce a law requiring public schools to bar transgender students from using restrooms aligned with their gender identity, leaving in place a lower courts injunction that protects a 15-year-old boy in Berkeley County.In a terse, unsigned order, the justices, by an apparent 6-3 vote, rejected the states request for emergency relief, stressing that the denial was not a ruling on the merits of the case but instead reflected the courts standards for extraordinary intervention. Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Neil Gorsuch dissented and said they would have granted the states request.The challenged provision, enacted in 2024 as a budget rider, punishes school districts that allow transgender students access to restrooms consistent with their identity by stripping away a quarter of their state funding. The student at the center of the case was suspended for using the boys restroom, prompting his family, backed by the advocacy group Alliance for Full Acceptance, to sue.Related: South Carolina rushes emergency petition to U.S. Supreme Court over trans students bathroom useA panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit in Richmond, Virginia, blocked the law last month, relying on its earlier ruling in Grimm v. Gloucester County School Board, which found that bathroom bans targeting transgender students violate both Title IX and the Equal Protection Clause. South Carolina has urged the justices to treat Grimm as an outlier in light of recent decisions, including United States v. Skrmetti, which in June upheld Tennessees ban on gender-affirming care for minors under a lenient rational basis standard.By denying emergency relief, the justices have allowed the boy to continue using the boys restroom while the case proceeds. The justices have sidestepped similar bathroom controversies before, but multiple cases on trans rights are already on the docket, including challenges to sports bans in West Virginia and a test of Colorados ban on dangerous so-called conversion therapy.