This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
A journalist in Maine is suing a school and several officials after an article he posted about a new transgender policy in the school that cited the danger to girls when boys are in their restrooms was torpedoed.
Officials with the Center for American Liberty, working with the Randazza Legal Group, said the action targets the actions of the Brewer School Department, Supt. Gregg Palmer, Principal Brent Slowikowski, and Michelle MacDonald, a teacher.
They are accused of violating the rights of Shawn McBreairty, a journalist and educational advocate.
The defendants are accused of working together and violating the First Amendment when they forced McBreairty to take down an article citing a new, and controversial, bathroom policy.
The complaint that was filed in U.S. District Court in Maine seeks declaratory and injunctive relief and damages.
The problem was precipitated when Brewer school officials adopted "a new bathroom policy, which permits students to use the bathroom that corresponds to their gender identity, rather than their biological sex."
The same development has occurred in many other schools across the country as Joe Biden continues to push onto Americans his transgender ideologies and beliefs. There have been negative outcomes in a number of cases, including girls being sexually assaulted by males who portray themselves as female.
The complaint notes that students who are in support of full civil rights and liberties for individuals, whatever their "gender identity," nevertheless have concerns about safety and privacy when it comes to private spaces.
It charges, "some people take advantage of openness in the form of permissive bathroom policies to sexually assault girls."
They assembled a petition to seek a reversal of the school's politically correct scheme.
"We want to bring awareness to the fact that women's and men's public spaces should be biologically separated. It's about the privacy and restrictions that need to be upheld for both men and women, things such as bathrooms, locker rooms, sports, and types of changing areas or sanitary stations should all be based on whether you are a biological girl or boy. When these rights of privacy are taken away from anybody it is unfair. This is a petition to keep the basic human rights of privacy and comfort that have been around for hundreds of years, untouched and unchanged."
The complaint noted while the students were seeking equality, the school was seeking "transgender supremacy" in public schools.
The result was that school officials accused those supporting the petition of advocating "hate speech," and implied a threat of criminal prosecution, the filing states.
Subsequently, McBreairty wrote about the dispute, in an article: "Girls' bathrooms are not 'safe spaces' when males are present."
School officials responded to that by having a lawyer threaten McBreairty if he did not remove the article.
When McBreairty took the article, on a matter of public interest, down and published the threatening email from the school, the school threatened him all over again, the filing states.
The complaint charges the school with numerous First Amendment violations.
"Students and parents have a fundamental right to criticize school policies," Harmeet Dhillon, founder of the Center for American Liberty, said. "McBreairty’s article shed light on legitimate concerns about the Brewer School Department’s bathroom policy and the silencing of student free speech. The Department’s attempts to silence McBreairty for his reporting are both ironic and a flagrant violation of his First Amendment freedoms. We look forward to reaffirming McBrearity’s right to free speech and correcting this government overreach in court."
