Wisconsin parents claim school punished daughters for refusing to change in front of trans student
The Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty (WILL) filed a Title IX complaint on behalf of the parents with the Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights (OCR) and with U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi against Westosha Central High School for "endangering the safety and privacy of multiple female students."
The complaint, shared first with Fox News Digital, claims that Westosha Central High allowed a male student to share a locker room for gym class with female students and allegedly punished students who attempted to avoid changing in front of the male student.
The complaint was brought by two parents of female students in the class. One of the parents said he ended up pulling his daughter out of the school because of the situation.
Illinois Mother Files Civil Rights Complaint, Says Daughter Nearly Forced To Change In Front Of Trans Student
"Parents send their kids to school so they can learn in a safe environment, but that's not what happened here. My daughter was punished for standing up for her own privacy and safety. The district's misplaced priorities left us no choice but to leave the school," former Westosha parent Nicholas Puchter said.
Read On The Fox News App
The complaint states that at the beginning of the second semester last December, two female students, "Jane Doe 1" and "Jane Doe 2," began a new physical education class where they became aware that a male transgender student would be allowed to change in the girls' locker room.
"While some girls could use the few available toilet stalls to change in privacy and away from the gaze of the male student, others could not because of the limited time offered for changing. The result was a crowded and uncomfortable environment where many girls felt pressured into an inadequate choice between exposure and tardiness," the complaint states.
After Jane Doe 1 and Jane Doe 2 expressed "discomfort and embarrassment" at being required to undress in front of a male student to their gym teacher, the complaint claims they were told "not to worry about it" and that it would be considered "bullying," to not allow the transgender student to use the girls' locker room.
Conservative School Board In Blue State Asking Trump Admin To Intervene On Gender Policy
The complaint says the parents of the two girls also called the school's administration office to demand they address the issue. However, the transgender student was still allowed to change in the same locker room, the complaint claims.
During the winter break, Westosha also sent a letter to families, claiming that "no reports of inappropriate locker room behaviors were made to school personnel or law enforcement" but regardless, the school said it had "taken steps to ensure all students feel safe and comfortable in the locker room."
The complaint says that Jane Doe 1 and Jane Doe 2 faced academic penalties when they attempted to avoid changing in front of the transgender student.
Jane Doe 1 allegedly "received multiple unexcused absences attempting to avoid the leering gaze of a male student in the locker room."
Hhs' Civil Rights Office Finds Maine In Violation Of Title Ix For Allowing Biological Males In Women's Sports
In one instance, Jane Doe 1 tried to sit in the girls' bathroom outside the locker room to avoid the male student when a teacher "yelled" at her for skipping class and forced her to return to PE class, the complaint says.
Jane Doe 2 was also marked absent on multiple occasions because she would wait for an empty stall to change clothes for class. Although her absences were excused after her father called the school, she still received a failing grade in the class, the complaint says. Her family ultimately chose to pull her out of Westosha, which is located in Paddock Lake, a village in Kenosha County bordering Illinois.
WILL accuses the school of violating Title IX protections by failing to "take meaningful action to accommodate" or address the students' concerns and creating an environment where female students' participation in gym class was hindered.
WILL is asking the Department of Justice and Department of Education to investigate these claims and "act swiftly to remedy unlawful policies and practices, and order appropriate relief."
WILL Associate Counsel Lauren Greuel provided the following statement:
"When schools like Westosha force girls into an inadequate choice between exposing themselves to a male student or academic penalties, they abandon all common-sense and their core mission. The law requires protections for girls to have the same educational opportunities as their male peers. The decision to punish these girls for protecting themselves must be promptly investigated by the Department of Education. We ask the department to consider the allegations in our complaint and quickly remedy these unlawful policies and practices."
In response to the complaint, the Department of Justice told Fox News Digital, "Forcing girls to compete against and share locker rooms with boys is demeaning, unfair, and dangerous. The Department of Justice will protect women and continue to vigorously defend President Trump's executive actions, including the Keeping Men Out of Women's Sports executive order."
Wetosha Central High and the Department of Education did not respond to Fox News Digital's requests for comment.Original article source: Wisconsin parents claim school punished daughters for refusing to change in front of trans student
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Hill
4 hours ago
- The Hill
Trans athletes face uncertain future after Penn strikes deal with Trump administration
The University of Pennsylvania's decision this week to sign an agreement with the Trump administration committing to barring transgender athletes from its women's sports teams is raising questions about whether other schools might do the same faced with the weight of the federal government. Penn, President Trump's alma mater, is the first to sign such an agreement, which the Education Department's Office for Civil Rights (OCR) proposed following an investigation that found the university violated Title IX, the federal law against sex discrimination in schools, when it allowed Lia Thomas to join the women's swim team for the 2021-22 season. Thomas broke three of the six Penn women's swimming and diving individual freestyle records that year, which the university removed from its leaderboard as part of its agreement with the Trump administration. An addendum to Penn's women's swimming all-time school records now reads, 'Competing under eligibility rules in effect at the time, Lia Thomas set program records in the 100, 200 and 500 freestyle during the 2021-22 season.' Penn's agreement with the OCR also required it to issue a public statement, to be displayed 'in a prominent location on its main website,' pledging compliance with Title IX, which the administration has said prohibits transgender girls from girls' sports, and specifying that it would not allow transgender women to participate in women's sports or enter women's athletic facilities, such as locker rooms. The Ivy League institution was also made to personally apologize to Thomas's former teammates and adopt 'biology-based' definitions of the terms 'male' and 'female,' consistent with two executive orders Trump signed during his first weeks in office — one that proclaims the U.S. recognizes only two unchangeable sexes, and another stating the federal government opposes trans athletes' participation in girls' and women's sports. The NCAA, which oversees sports at more than 1,000 colleges and universities nationwide, barred transgender women from participating in women's college sports shortly after Trump signed the order on trans athletes. The organization's president, Charlie Baker, had testified before a Senate panel in December that fewer than 10 known NCAA athletes are transgender. 'There is nothing legitimate about what the Trump administration is doing here in targeting trans-inclusive sports policies,' said Shiwali Patel, director of safe and inclusive schools at the National Women's Law Center. 'I don't think we should be giving any sort of legitimacy — I don't think institutions should, by signing these resolution agreements,' Patel said. In a letter addressed to the Penn community on Tuesday, J. Larry Jameson, the university's president, wrote that the school's commitment to fostering a welcoming environment for its students is 'unwavering,' but that it is also bound by federal requirements, including executive orders and NCAA eligibility rules. 'This is a complex issue, and I am pleased that we were able to reach a resolution through the standard OCR process for concluding Title IX investigations,' he wrote. Jameson added that Penn has never had a transgender student-athlete policy of its own and was in compliance with federal law and NCAA rules when Thomas was a student. But refusing to sign the Trump administration's agreement 'could have had significant and lasting implications for the University of Pennsylvania,' he wrote. The administration had suspended $175 million in federal contracts awarded to Penn in March, citing Thomas's participation on the women's swim team three years ago. That money was released to the university after it signed the agreement,a White House official told The Hill. Patel said she worries Penn, by signing the agreement, is setting a precedent for other schools to follow, despite having what she said is 'a clear legal claim' to challenge the administration if it were to pull a college or university's funding over its trans athletes. 'I'm worried that other schools might follow, but I hope they push back,' she said. 'If they don't challenge it, then I think that this is going to make the Trump administration think, 'Well, this is a winnable approach, you know, let's keep at it and be more aggressive.' I worry that they'll continue on this.' Since Trump's return to office in January, the Education Department has opened more than two dozen investigations into states, school districts and athletic associations that it says are violating Title IX by allowing transgender students to compete. In April, the department joined forces with the Department of Justice to establish a Title IX 'special investigations team' in response to what either agency described as a 'staggering volume' of new complaints. The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has also initiated Title IX investigations related to transgender athletes under the second Trump administration, one of which found the state of Maine in violation of the federal civil rights law. That investigation was later referred to the Justice Department, which filed a civil lawsuit against the state's Education Department in April. The Justice Department is also investigating California, whose funding Trump threatened in May over a transgender 16-year-old's participation in a state track-and-field championship. While several universities have also seen their federal funding threatened or frozen by the Trump administration, Penn is so far the only school to have its funding paused over its handling of transgender athletes. On separate issues, schools have challenged the administration: Harvard University and the Trump administration continue to lock horns in an escalating battle that began in April, when the White House froze more than $2.2 billion in federal grants to Harvard over the school's refusal to implement policies that it claims exceed the government's lawful authority and violate its constitutional rights. Penn's agreement with the administration on Tuesday signals that other schools may not have the desire, or the resources, to enter costly and high-profile litigation with the government. They may also lack the appetite to go to bat for transgender students at the risk of losing hundreds of millions in federal financial assistance. 'No school wants to lose their federal funding, so I do think that we're going to see schools probably adopt more restrictive eligibility policies around transgender athlete participation, particularly in states that already have laws that exclude trans athlete participation,' said Leah Reynolds, principle consultant at Distinct Consulting Solutions, which advises schools on Title IX compliance. Twenty-seven Republican-led states since 2020 have adopted laws that bar trans students from competing in line with their gender identity, according to the Movement Advancement Project, which tracks LGBTQ laws. Court orders are blocking six of them, in Arizona, Idaho, Utah and West Virginia, from taking effect, and a narrow ruling in New Hampshire allows only the two students challenging the law to continue competing on their schools' girls' sports teams. A federal judge allowed the two high school students to expand their legal challenge to include the Trump administration in February. 'Right now, if you're following the industry, you can see there's a clear divide,' said Reynolds. 'Some schools, like schools in California or Maine, appear to be resistant to federal pressure to restrict trans athletes. There's probably going to be a divide until some of the court cases that are happening right now start resolving themselves.' On Thursday, the Supreme Court agreed to weigh during its next term whether state laws banning transgender athletes from girls' and women's school sports teams violate Title IX and the 14th Amendment's Equal Protection Clause. The court's conservative majority ruled last month that a Tennessee law banning gender-affirming care for minors does not violate the U.S. Constitution or discriminate based on sex or transgender status.
Los Angeles Times
4 hours ago
- Los Angeles Times
Oh please, the right is reviving a tired trope about women
Here we go again. A bunch of successful, conservative professional women are telling young women they don't need careers to have fulfilling lives. All they need to do is avoid college (or better yet, just use it to find a husband), get married, have babies, stay home and live happily ever after. Perhaps you've noticed the proliferation of 'tradwife' (i.e. traditional wife) influencers on various forms of social media, or the coverage of conferences like the woefully misnamed Young Women's Leadership Summit that recently took place in Dallas. A project of Charlie Kirk's conservative student organization, Turning Point USA, the summit promised to focus on 'foundational aspects of womanhood' such as 'faith, femininity and well-being.' The conference drew 3,000 women who, according to reports, were mostly college students or young professionals. They sported pins that read 'My favorite season is the fall of feminism' and 'Dump your socialist boyfriend,' and they were told by Kirk, 'We should bring back the celebration of the Mrs. degree.' 'The left wants women to feel angry and like victims, and like your rights are being taken away,' a 31-year-old influencer named Arynne Wexler told a reporter for New York magazine. Not to put too fine a point on it, but in fact her rights are being taken away. Perhaps she has forgotten that the Supreme Court overturned the right to abortion in 2022? Anyway, there is absolutely nothing new here. A certain subset of women — straight, white, conservative, religious — has always fought against gender equality for their own reasons, but mostly I'd say because it threatens their own privileged status and proximity to male power. Nearly half a century before Wexler bemoaned 'the left,' Phyllis Schlafly, lawyer, author and anti-feminist crusader, said basically the same thing: 'The feminist movement taught women to see themselves as victims of an oppressive patriarchy. Self-imposed victimhood is not a recipe for happiness.' Hmmm. I'm pretty sure it was oppressive patriarchy that prevented women from owning property, having their own credit cards and bank accounts, from earning equal pay, accessing legal birth control and abortion, serving on juries and holding public office. Until second wave feminism came along in the 1960s and 1970s, I'm pretty sure, too, that oppressive patriarchy allowed employers to fire women once they married or got pregnant, and that domestic violence, marital rape and sexual harassment were not treated as crimes. Oh, and it was feminists who pushed for Title IX of the Civil Rights Act, which addressed gender inequality in education, including, crucially, in sports. Attacking feminism because you've never experienced a time when women were not, for the most part, legally equal to men springs from the same ignorant well as believing measles vaccines are unnecessary because you've never experienced the (largely vaccine-eliminated) disease for yourself. Indeed, reciting the accomplishments of feminism reminds me of that classic scene in the 1979 black comedy 'Monty Python's Life of Brian.' You may recall it: What have the Romans ever given us? (Just sanitation, medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, a fresh water system and public health.) A consistent thread in the argument against gender equality is that feminism makes women feel bad for staying home with their kids and not pursuing careers. In Dallas last month, young conference-goers told the New York Times 'that it was feminism and career ambition making them unhappy, not the broader stress of puzzle-piecing together the responsibilities of modern life.' In 1994, then-First Lady Barbara Bush said she had experienced a period of depression and partly attributed it to 'the women's movement,' which, as she told NPR, 'sort of made women who stayed home feel inadequate.' I get that. But in response, I would paraphrase Eleanor Roosevelt: No one can make you feel inadequate without your consent. If you are lucky enough to be able to stay home with your children and do not feel compelled to carve out a career, more power to you. Alex Clark, a popular podcaster and influencer who headlined the Young Women's Leadership Conference, offered the crowd her Make America Healthy Again formula: 'Less Prozac and more protein. Less burnout, more babies, less feminism, more femininity.' But having lots of babies is stressful — having one baby is stressful — and can certainly lead to its own kind of burnout. One of the most popular tradwives in the country, Hannah Neeleman, is a Mormon mother of eight young children. She is married to a rancher who is the son of the founder of Jet Blue, has more than 9 million social media followers and, as a former professional ballerina, posts under the handle Ballerina Farm. Last summer, in a profile published by the Times of London, she was dubbed the 'queen of tradwives.' We learned that she does all the food shopping, makes all the meals and has no help with childcare. I would submit that she is a career woman as well, since she runs popular social media accounts that generate millions of dollars a year in income. In a stunning admission, her husband told the London Times reporter that his wife 'sometimes gets so ill from exhaustion that she can't get out of bed for a week.' I could not help but think of Mormon housewives in the state of Utah, which has led the nation in antidepressant prescriptions for decades. 'Most men here would just as soon their wives take pills than bother to delve into the problems, and maybe find out they might have something to do with the problems,' a Mormon mom told the Los Angeles Times in 2002, the year the prescription study was released. Dana Loesch, a conservative commentator, radio host and author who once shilled for the National Rifle Assn., was one of the speakers in Dallas whose reality contradicts her rhetoric. 'I'll tell you this, ladies,' she told the crowd. 'You cannot have it all, at the same time. Something will suffer.' Oh please. Loesch has it all — a career, marriage and kids. So why can't they? @ @rabcarian.
San Francisco Chronicle
a day ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
Politicized kids? Rogue teachers? A contentious education battle hasn't calmed in S.F.
As the U.S. has split into divisive camps over racial issues, transgender rights, the war in Gaza, women's health and more, the teaching of ethnic studies has become among the most contentious educational fights in California and other states, dividing communities and turning formerly friendly PTA parents into adversaries. Not even liberal-minded San Francisco has escaped the battle. Ethnic studies has become something of a symbolic punching bag for what some call public education overreach, where ideology and activism subvert the basic objectives of reading, writing and 'rithmatic. Based on the state Department of Education's definition, the curriculum is meant to focus on the histories, cultures, struggles and contributions of historically marginalized groups, which are often untold in conventional U.S. history courses. That includes addressing the causes of racism and other forms of bigotry — ultimately so that young people develop a 'social consciousness and knowledge' to contribute to the public good and strengthen democracy. Some school districts across the country have argued over whether to teach the course at all. More frequently, the debate in the Bay Area and elsewhere has centered on what to teach and how to teach it. Should it foster awareness and pride in students from diverse backgrounds or focus on white supremacy, racism and other forms of oppression to help students understand the world? And what should parents or students do when educators venture into personal opinions and promote their own political views? 'There are folks who would prefer that we don't have any of these conversations in schools,' said Anna Klaster, principal of San Francisco's Independent High School and president of the administrators union. 'On the other side there are folks who think we should be having all the conversations.' Klaster said she has seen parents opt their kids out of English classes because a reading assignment included a gay protagonist or because a text referenced magic. At the same time, she has had to help a teacher who was uncomfortable with the way her students wanted to talk about controversial subjects in her classroom. 'Everyone has feelings around this,' Klaster said. In San Francisco, efforts to appease vocal community members riled up about ethnic studies haven't seemed to work. During the past school year, some community members, as well as conservative organizations outside the state, have raised concerns about the content of ethnic studies courses, saying they were antisemitic, or promoted anti-capitalist activism, or dwelled on white supremacy, among other issues. It was the first year freshmen were required to take the year-long course, which the school board had added as a graduation requirement. While district officials reportedly considered pausing the course for a year, they will instead replace the district's controversial, homegrown curriculum with off-the-shelf content this fall. That didn't calm critics, either. While the district hasn't officially selected which coursework to use, one possibility is 'Voices,' created by a national social studies textbook publisher, which a group of parents and community leaders immediately panned. It 'promotes 'dismantling of privilege,' and encourages students to see themselves as part of a political movement,' the oppositional group said in a statement Thursday. 'Students are instructed to create protest art, reflect on how they are 'complicit in injustice,' and explore 'how to resist systems of power.'' The group called on the district to suspend the graduation requirement and make the course an elective while initiating an open process to adopt an ethnic studies curriculum. 'This so-called curriculum indoctrinates our students to believe in the premise that capitalism is inherently exploitative of certain minority groups,' said district parent Jason LaMacchia in the statement. 'This is a political point of view, not critical thinking, and it has no place being taught as fact in a public school setting.' While opposition to ethnic studies has been loud, it's unclear how widespread it is. Last year, the district saw just three complaints related to curriculum through the uniform complaint process, although officials did not identify the courses and it was not immediately known if the investigation into each was complete. Parents and students can also raise concerns about instruction at the school level with administrators or teachers, and there are procedures to address them, Klaster said. San Francisco school board member Matt Alexander said that the issues raised about ethnic studies really apply to all subjects, but have been targeted at one specific course. 'The teacher's job is not to have an opinion,' he said. If you start out with the answer, you've undermined the students ability to think for themselves. I think studying protest movements is important, but telling somebody what to think is not good at all.' Alexander noted that ethnic studies has a 'ton of support' and research showing that, academically, ethnic studies was a boon for city students. More than 11,000 San Francisco high school students took the elective course between 2008 and 2023, most commonly freshmen, with 36% of ninth graders enrolled in the 2022-2023 school year, according to a study by the UC Irvine School of Education. Intriguingly, students who took the course had GPA nearly 0.2 grade points higher in all subjects compared to those who didn't — considered a 'large effect' in education policy research, authors said. The higher grades were seen across all demographics and likely pushed between 400 and 700 students into eligibility for the University of California, which requires a 3.0 GPA, according to the study. One city parent said the course was arguably the best class his freshman son took at Lowell High School last year, with 'critical thinking skills, creativity of teaching methods, and material covered.' 'As we experienced it at Lowell this year, Ethnic Studies is basically a very solid history class with a critical perspective,' Jack Brown said in an email to the Chronicle. 'I should note that I was personally very skeptical at the beginning of the year, worried that my son's class would be superficial identity politics, sloganeering, but that was not at all the reality.'
