Women call on Supreme Court to strike down town’s topless sunbathing ban

A group of women is calling on the Supreme Court to strike down a Maryland town’s topless sunbathing ban, contenting that the policy is discriminatory towards women.

Attorneys representing five women in a case involving the Ocean City statute filed a petition with the Supreme Court on Dec. 1, calling on the bench to review a lower court’s decision that called the local policy constitutional, the Salisbury Daily Times reported on Monday.

The Supreme Court has until Jan. 7 to respond to the petition.

Ocean City passed an ordinance in 2017 after Chelsea Eline, one of the plaintiffs behind the petition, reached out to local police to argue for her ability to be topless on the beach, according to the Daily Times.

The next year, Eline and four other women reportedly sued Ocean City, contending that the local law breaches the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution.

In April 2020, a federal judge ruled that the law was legal and not unconstitutional, a decision that the plaintiffs appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals less than a month later, according to the newspaper.

A three-judge panel, however, upheld the local law in August, according to The Associated Press. The unanimous ruling said that courts throughout the U.S. have bolstered similar policies.

Judge A. Marvin Quattlebaum Jr. said the town leadership had the right to enforce the local policy for women but not men to safeguard public sensibilities, according to the AP.

Chief Judge Roger Gregory concurred with the ruling, writing that precedent from the Supreme Court bolsters the policy, but he did suggest that the bench should take another look at the matter.

“At first glance, Ocean City’s ordinance seems innocuous enough. … But we must take care not to let our analysis be confined by the limits of our social lens,” Gregory wrote, according to the AP.

“Suppose the ordinance defined nudity to include public exposure of a woman’s hair, neck, shoulders, or ankles. Would that law not run afoul of the Equal Protection Clause?” he added.

The petition is specifically asking the Supreme Court to determine if “protecting traditional moral sensibilities” is so high of an interest for the government that it warrants discriminating against women, according to the AP.

It asks the justices to rule that the policy is in breach of the Equal Protection Clause “because the discriminatory gender classification contained in the ordinance does not further an important governmental interest, and is not narrowly tailored to achieve its objective,” according to the news wire.