Reports have emerged from Kiel, Wisconsin that a sexual harassment claim has been filed against three eight grade students by Kiel Middle School.
The middle school brought the suit against the 13-year-old boys under Title IX for allegedly not using fellow students’ preferred pronouns of “they/them.”
The student, who had reportedly switched pro-nouns a month prior, felt offended by the three teenage boys for allegedly not playing a ‘pronoun game’ in an incident that is said to have occurred in April this year.
Rosemary Rabidoux, the mother of one of the accused teenagers, told Fox 11 News she received a phone call from the principal… forewarning me, letting me know I was going to be receiving an email with sexual harassment allegations against my son.”
Rabidoux told the news outlet that she was in shock as her immediate reaction to hearing the accusation of sexual harassment led her to thoughts of rape, inappropriate touching, and incest.
“What did my son do? He’s a little boy,” she said.
After speaking with her son, she understood that the allegations were a result of ‘not playing the pronoun game.’
“It’s plural. It doesn’t make sense to him,” she said, adding that she told her son to call them by their names.
The families of the three accused boys retained the counsel of the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty’s, Luke Berg.
Mr Berg said that the middle school has no legal standing to file the complaint and that the case has no merit.
“It’s not sexual harassment under Title IX, under their own policy, under federal law, and it’s probably a First Amendment violation,” Berg said, adding that the case should be dismissed.
“Title IX sexual harassment typically covers things like rape, dating violence, quid pro quo sexual favors – really egregious stuff… There’s nothing even remotely close to that alleged in this case,” Mr Berg told FOX 11.
“Eighth-graders shouldn’t be subjected to this kind of investigation or this type of reputational harm for something that on its face clearly doesn’t violate Title IX in sexual harassment,” he added.
Kiel Area School District Superintendent Brad Ebert released a statement indicating that the school will stand by the filed complaint.
Mr Berg; on behalf of the teen’s families; is seeking a response to a request for Kiel Middle School to drop the charges by May 20, 2022.
It is likely that legal action will be taken against the school if the request is not met, Mr Berg said.
