The Sun Prairie Area School District is charging a Milwaukee-based law firm more than $11,000 for records connected to what witnesses called a “disturbing” incident involving a transgender “woman” in a high school girls’ locker room.
Dan Lennington, deputy legal counsel for the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty (WILL), told The Wisconsin Daily Star that the charge is excessive and the law firm is considering all of its legal options.
“This highlights the ways that governments can abuse the government records laws by charging location costs even when those costs are not authorized by the law,” Lennington said.
As The Wisconsin Daily Star reported last month, WILL alleges in a letter to school district officials that the “alarming incident” not only violated the privacy rights of four freshman girls but that Sun Prairie district administrators’ “completely inadequate” response continues to put Sun Prairie students in further danger.
According to the letter, the freshman girls were participating in a swimming unit at Sun Prairie’s East High School on March 3. They entered the girls’ athletic locker room to shower and change for class when they noted a senior male student standing at one of the lockers. WILL reports the student was 18 years old at the time of the incident and was not in the girls’ first-hour physical education class.
While the freshmen said they were surprised to see the senior in their locker room, “they had a general idea that this student identifies as transgender and has used girls’ bathrooms before,” the letter states.
The girls entered the shower area with their swimsuits on, which was their common practice as they rinsed off, according to WILL. As they began to shower, the male student approached them, entered the shower area, announced, “I’m trans, by the way,” and then undressed fully and showered completely naked right next to one of the girls.
“He was initially turned towards the wall but eventually turned and fully exposed his male genitalia to the four girls,” the letter states. “Understandably, the girls were caught off guard and shocked, closed their eyes, and tried to hurry up and leave the showers as quickly as possible.”
WILL alleges district administrators failed to contact the district’s Title IX coordinator upon learning of the incident, a requirement under federal law. The public interest law firm also raised questions about the district’s policies in place to handle such privacy concerns.
More than a month after the locker room incident, the high school’s principal apologized via email to one of the girl’s parents “for the incident that occurred,” reiterating that what the young high school girls experienced “should not have happened.” The principal wrote that “we will continue to work to ensure no one has a similar experience,” but she did not articulate any steps the school or district is taking to ensure the privacy and safety of students, according to WILL’s letter.
WILL filed a request under Wisconsin’s open records law for emails, texts, messages, voicemails, and other communications sent or received by district administrators.
Sun Prairie Schools legal counsel Lori Lubinksy informed WILL that the price tag for fulfilling the records request would be north of $11,000, according to a letter obtained by Fox News Digital.
“This is an overly broad request, but we are willing to have this search conducted,” Lubinsky wrote. She itemimized estimated hourly costs and related expenses to locate the requested records.
The district, according to Fox News Digital, claims WILL’s letter “provides neither an accurate nor complete account of the events that occurred,” but that the “incident that is the subject of WILL’s letter is a confidential, pupil matter, and the District is prohibited by law including the Wisconsin pupil records statute, Wis. Stat. 118.125, from disclosing any information about specific pupils in the District.”
District officials, however, appear to be prepared to release many of the records WILL is requesting — for a substantial fee.
WILL asserts the district is illegally charging exorbitant fees as a way to hide public records. Schools may charge small fees known as “location costs” to recover documents, but the fee cannot exceed the “actual, necessary, and direct cost of completing these tasks,” according to the Wisconsin Department of Justice. Many schools waive such records search fees.
“Parents, students and taxpayers deserve transparency and not secrecy from their public officials,” Lennington said.
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M.D. Kittle is the National Political Editor for The Star News Network.
