New Richmond's Board Made Girls Carry the Burden. Ella Frei Is Right, and the Feds Are Right to Step In.

New Richmond's school board should keep girls' bathrooms for girls, and Ella Frei is right to keep pressing it. On Oct. 11, Moms for Liberty posted: "Texas moms praying a hedge of protection over young @EllaFrei17 as she keeps fighting her school board for privacy, protection, and fairness in Wisconsin says everything about who we are." Frei answered: "Prayer changes things¹."

Frei is a senior at New Richmond High School, and she has taken her case to the board².

Her fight is now in federal court, where New Richmond Parents for Strong Schools alleges the district's bathroom policy violates the rights of high school girls under Title IX. The Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty, which represents the group, says the policy has put at least one male frequently in the girls' bathrooms, causing anxiety, stress and an invasion of privacy³.

Frei, a plaintiff, said: "Protecting girls by not allowing boys in the girls’ bathroom shouldn’t be controversial—it should be common sense." The Title IX regulation WILL cites says a school "may provide separate toilet, locker room, and shower facilities on the basis of sex³."

In New Richmond, the girls are the ones who have to move. Frei told the board that maps taped in the hallways direct girls uncomfortable sharing facilities with males to staff bathrooms or single-stall restrooms. She said some girls have stopped changing clothes or using the restroom during the school day. "This district chooses not to protect girls," she told the board².

The Education Department's Office for Civil Rights is now investigating whether the district violated Title IX by allowing students into bathrooms based on gender identity and not biological sex⁴. Why should a teenage girl need a hallway map to find somewhere private?

Under that arrangement the girl moves and the policy stays. When Frei spoke, board members did not respond, and no policy changes were announced.²

A girl should not have to be the one who leaves. WILL Deputy Counsel Cory Brewer states the standard: "Girls should feel safe at school and their privacy should be respected."³

Federal rules point the same way. The Education Department formally rescinded the Biden-era 2024 Title IX rule on Sept. 28 and reinstated the 2020 regulations, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. WILL attorney Lauren Greuel says schools should already have been operating under the 2020 rules. She warns: "If this 'gender identity' piece is included in the regulations, then that means that biological males can use those spaces as well."⁵

Privacy and safety are not a burden to hand a girl along with a hallway map. The board can end that burden by giving girls their bathrooms back.

Education Secretary Linda McMahon pledged to "hold accountable any school or college that violates the rights, privacy, or athletic opportunities of our women and girls⁵."

New Richmond parents don't have to wait for Washington. Fill the next board meeting and demand a vote restoring single-sex bathrooms. Girls deserve privacy and safety at school, and Ella Frei is right.

New Richmond's Board Made Girls Carry the Burden. Ella Frei Is Right, and the Feds Are Right to Step In.

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