The Department of Education (DOE) has opened an investigation into an incident at a Wisconsin school involving a transgender woman student in a locker room with female students.
The Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty, a conservative law firm, announced this week that it received a letter from the DOE saying that the department's Office of Civil Rights (OCR) was opening an investigation into a complaint it filed earlier this year involving a transgender student who undressed in front of female students in the Sun Prairie Area School District (SPASD). Newsweek reached out to the DOE via email for comment.
"Following the school's failure to sufficiently address the incident, disregard for parents' concerns, and their stonewalling of an open records request, WILL worked alongside parents of the school district to seek an investigation and remedies from the Department of Education under the Biden Administration," the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty [WILL] said in a press release on Thursday. "The federal government notified WILL that in response to our complaint they are opening an investigation of SPASD."
WILL Deputy Counsel Daniel Lennington told Newsweek on Thursday: "This opening of a formal civil rights investigation is tremendously significant, not only for this case, but as a warning to other schools nationwide that embrace new and untested transgender policies without considering the impact on female students."
According to the WILL, in June, it filed a complaint with the DOE after learning that an 18-year-old transgender woman student undressed in front of four female high school students in a locker room.
"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. Understandably, the girls closed their eyes and tried to hurry up and leave the showers."
Conservatives have continued to slam the LGBTQ+ and transgender community this year after Bud Light partnered with transgender influencer and activist Dylan Mulvaney, with many calling for boycotts and an end to the inclusion of transgender women in female sports.
Many Democrats have shown support for the transgender community, with President Joe Biden recently calling for an end to discrimination against trans individuals and saying: "My Administration ended the ban on transgender Americans serving our country and I signed historic executive action to strengthen civil rights protections for all LGBTQI+ Americans."
In the complaint to the DOE, WILL said that the locker room incident is a violation of Title IX law involving the prohibition of discrimination based on sex.
"Under this law, sex discrimination encompasses sexual harassment, which includes unwelcome conduct so severe that it effectively denies a person equal access to the education program, like the incident that occurred at SPASD," it said.
"WILL claims in this complaint that SPASD discriminated against four freshman girls on the basis of sex. Not only did the district fail to comply with requirements under Title IX, but its policies fail to protect all female students in the district."
The law firm said it previously listened to complaints from parents following the incident, and that the female students initially informed an assistant principal, who was required to notify the Title IX coordinator but failed to do so.
"Over a month after the incident, a principal emailed our client and apologized 'for the incident that occurred' and attached a copy of a 'Restroom and Locker Room Accessibility Guidance' document [Ex. A], which by all accounts was never adopted by the school board," the complaint said. "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."
A spokesperson for the school district confirmed to WMSN-TV in Wisconsin receipt of the letter from the DOE but didn't comment further.
The letter announcing the investigation by the DOE said the department will remain "neutral," and "will collect and analyze the evidence it needs in order to make a decision."
"We applaud the Department of Education Office of Civil Rights for investigating the allegations made in our complaint, but we all need to wait and see if they take this as seriously as they should," WILL Associate Counsel Cory Brewer said. "We hope this results in answers for parents and families at the Sun Prairie Area School District, but we won't know until we see the results of the investigation."
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Matthew Impelli is a Newsweek staff writer based in New York. His focus is reporting social issues and crime. In ... Read more
