The Virginia school board that refused to let transgender student Gavin Grimm use the boys’ restroom — spawning a lawsuit that almost reached the U.S. Supreme Court — has agreed to settle the case and will pay Grimm $1.3？million.

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       The money will cover Grimm’s attorney’s fees and other costs associated with Grimm’s discrimination case against the Gloucester County School Board, a suit that has stretched for a half-dozen years and won national attention. The school board’s decision to settle comes about two months after the Supreme Court declined to hear Grimm’s case, effectively handing a victory to Grimm over the Gloucester school board.

       Neither Grimm nor the Gloucester school board immediately responded to requests for comment Thursday.

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       In a statement, Grimm’s lawyer, Josh Block of the American Civil Liberties Union, said the $1.3？million — in combination with the Supreme Court’s rejection — mean that Grimm “has been fully vindicated.”

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       But, he added, “it should not have taken over six years of expensive litigation to get to this point.”

       The case and the controversy date back to 2014, when Grimm, now in his twenties, was a high school sophomore who sought to use the boys’ restroom. The school board denied the teenager access, prompting such severe parent backlash that the school was forced to backtrack and instead allowed Grimm to use a restroom reserved just for him.

       But that solution was far from adequate, as Grimm has previously said.

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       “Being forced to use the nurse’s room, a private bathroom, and the girl’s room was humiliating for me,” Grimm said in June. “Having to go to out-of-the-way bathrooms severely interfered with my education.”

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       Grimm decided to sue the school board, winning the applause of transgender advocates nationwide and the support of the Obama administration. His suit then began working its way through the courts: Grimm won at the district court and again at the 4th Circuit court, after which victory the Supreme Court agreed to take the case.

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       Then Donald Trump won the presidency, shifting the federal government’s position to one of curtailing transgender rights. The justices opted to send Grimm’s case back to the lower courts.

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       When President Biden was elected, the administration’s view on transgender rights changed yet again. And in August, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit ruled in Grimm’s favor, concluding that the Gloucester school board had discriminated against Grimm on the basis of sex and violated the 14th Amendment.

       The school board appealed the 4th Circuit’s decision, meaning Grimm’s case was once again up for consideration by the Supreme Court. In late June, the Supreme Court decided not to hear Grimm’s case, although Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr. said they would have accepted it.

       As is customary, the Supreme Court did not give a reason for its rejection — which was widely interpreted as a major victory for transgender rights activists, given it allows the August ruling from the 4th Circuit court to stand.