A Wisconsin school district is facing a federal Department of Education investigation related to an incident in March in which a man exposed himself in a female locker room.
The incident took place at Sun Prairie East High School in the Sun Prairie School District, according to the Wisconsin State Journal.
In a letter to the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty, a conservative law firm that filed the complaint that led to the investigation, the Education Department said the investigation falls under Title IX of the Civil Rights Act.
School district representative Patti Lux said that “while the specific complaint that is the subject of OCR’s investigation is unclear, we anticipate the complaint relates to an incident the District previously investigated and addressed,” according to the Wisconsin State Journal.
A June complaint from the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty said that after the four girls finished a gym class during which they had been swimming “they noticed an 18-year-old senior male student in the area of the lockers and benches. While the girls were shocked to see him in the locker room, they had a general idea that the student identifies as transgender.”
The girls showered with their swimsuits on, the complaint said.
“As the girls began to shower, the male student approached them, entered the shower area, announced ‘I’m trans, by the way,’ and then fully undressed and showered next to the girls,” the complaint said.
“He was initially turned towards the wall but turned and fully exposed his body to the four girls. He had not transitioned medically and had the physiological appearance of an adult male,” the complaint said.
Dealing with the school was not satisfactory, the complaint said.
“While SPASD administrators repeatedly referenced a ‘policy’ that they said addressed the situation, no one could identify what the policy was or produce a copy. Over a month after the incident, a principal emailed our client and apologized ‘for the incident that occurred,’” and attached a policy the law firm said was never officially adopted by the school board.
When the firm filed a Freedom of Information request, it was told the information would cost $11,000 to produce.
“No one at SPASD contacted the girls to offer supportive measures or an opportunity to file a formal complaint of sexual harassment until after WILL became involved,” the firm wrote, adding that a student who complained about the incident was never interviewed as part of the district’s investigation.
“Parents and students should be able to feel confident that their school is complying with federal laws like Title IX, but right now in Sun Prairie parents do not have that confidence,” Cory Brewer, an associate counsel, said on the law firm’s website.
Dan Lennington, Deputy Counsel for the law firm, said the case is not an isolated incident.
“By no means is what happened in Wisconsin an isolated incident. When schools fail to act in accordance with the law and either ignore or disregard their own policies, parents have a right to fight back,” he said.
“Now it’s imperative that the Biden Administration conducts a thorough investigation and provides transparency and peace of mind to Sun Prairie parents,” he said.
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