Ella Frei went thirsty to avoid her school bathroom

A girl should never have to go thirsty to avoid her own school bathroom, and New Richmond, Wisconsin, made one do it. Moms for Liberty said in an October 16, 2026 post on X that Ella Frei, sixteen, stopped drinking water at school so she would not have to use her own bathroom. The group says the adults told the girls to be kind to the boy who was setting up camp in their bathroom¹. Badger Institute executive editor Patrick McIlheran writes that the school's answer to girls' complaints put the burden on the girls².

Federal probe examines bathroom policy

Washington is now asking whether that answer broke federal law. On March 5, 2026, the Education Department's Office for Civil Rights opened a directed investigation into the New Richmond School District. OCR will determine whether the district violated Title IX by letting students use intimate facilities based on "gender identity" instead of sex. Assistant Secretary Kimberly Richey said girls should not be put in that position. The school board had already voted the other way: when a member introduced a sex-separated bathroom and locker room policy in February, only two of seven members voted for it³. New Richmond Parents for Strong Schools then sued the district in federal court on April 10, 2026, in Case No. 3:26-cv-316, saying it "requires girls to bear the burden." The complaint says Superintendent Troy Miller told a parent that transgender students are allowed to use the bathrooms and locker rooms that match their gender identity⁴. Moms for Liberty’s October 15 X post says a federal judge refused to throw out the girls’ case on September 18 and that their Title IX and constitutional claims were headed toward trial⁵.

Complaint details girls’ burden

The complaint shows what the district's answer cost the girls in lost minutes and lost privacy. It says administrators posted maps around the high school pointing to single-stall bathrooms for students who did not want to share the girls' bathrooms with a male student. Frei told the Badger Institute the maps went up the day after the girls told the school board they were uncomfortable. The complaint says one girl, E.F., misses class time because the single-stall bathrooms are far from her classrooms. The superintendent's written reply to a parent, as the Badger Institute quotes it, pointed to the same single-stall rooms². The parents say they got no warning: the complaint alleges no prior notice or chance for input before the policy took effect⁴.

Girls deserve their own bathrooms

Girls should not be displaced from sex-separated bathrooms; schools should find another answer. The complaint says the policy has led female students to avoid restrooms and experience anxiety. If a girl must cross the building and lose class time to keep her privacy, whom is the policy protecting? Parents, not school officials, direct their children's upbringing, and families here were given no notice and no say. The Badger Institute cites a New York Times poll this year finding that 79 percent of Americans side with the girls². A board that voted five to two against a sex-separated policy is on the wrong side of those families. Parents should heed Moms for Liberty’s advice to demand a yes-or-no answer and records Moms for Liberty’s advice to “ask the yes-or-no question on the record” and “file the records request”⁵; the investigation and lawsuit put the district’s policy under scrutiny. A girl should use her school's girls' bathroom without being sent across the building to a single-stall room.

Ella Frei went thirsty to avoid her school bathroom

Federal probe examines bathroom policy

Complaint details girls’ burden

Girls deserve their own bathrooms

Sources