Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit and nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletter to get our investigative stories and Friday news roundup.

Heading into the 2024 election, Wisconsin faces a new challenge state lawmakers here have so far failed to address: generative artificial intelligence. 

AI can draft a fundraising email or campaign graphics in seconds, no writing or design skills required. Or, as the Republican National Committee showed in April, it can conjure lifelike videos of China invading Taiwan or migrants crossing the U.S. border made entirely of fictional AI-generated footage.

More recently, a Super PAC supporting a Republican presidential candidate’s bid to make the Milwaukee debate stage on Aug. 23 used an AI-generated video of that candidate to fundraise — which one campaign finance expert called an “innovative” way around campaign finance rules that would otherwise ban a Super PAC and candidate from coordinating on an ad.

Technology and election experts say AI’s applications will both “transform” and threaten elections across the United States. And Wisconsin, a gerrymandered battleground that previously weathered baseless claims of election fraud, may face an acute risk.

Yet Wisconsin lawmakers have not taken official steps to regulate use of the technology in campaigning, even as other states and Congress introduce and begin to implement guardrails.

Rep. Scott Krug, R-Nekoosa, chair of the Assembly Committee on Campaigns and Elections, told Wisconsin Watch he hasn’t “related (AI) too much to elections just yet.”

In the Senate’s Committee on Shared Revenue, Elections and Consumer Protection, “it just hasn’t come up yet,” said Sen. Jeff Smith, D-Brunswick.

Election committee members in both chambers expressed interest in possible remedies but doubt that they could pass protections before the next election cycle.

Rep. Clinton Anderson, D-Beloit, is drafting a bill that would mandate disclosure of AI, sometimes called “synthetic media,” in political ads, something experts call a basic step lawmakers could take to regulate the technology.

“If we wait til 2024, it’s gonna be too late,” Anderson said in an interview. “If we can get this minimum thing done, then maybe we can have a conversation about, ‘What’s the next step?’ ” 

“No matter where you fall politically, I think you should want some transparency in campaigns,” he added.

The Wisconsin Elections Commission declined to comment.

The AI threat: ‘Real creepy real fast’

Several lawmakers said AI repackages old problems in new technology, noting voters have encountered deceptive visuals and targeted advertising before. 

But generative AI makes such content cheaper, easier and faster to produce. New York University’s Brennan Center for Justice notes that Russian-affiliated organizations spent more than $1 million a month in 2016 to produce manipulative political ads that could be created today with AI for a fraction of the cost. 

Dietram Scheufele, who studies science communication and technology policy at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said that while some of the doomsday predictions about AI are overblown, “we’re definitely entering a new world.” 

The technology, he said, “gets real creepy real fast.”

Scheufele cited a prior study in which researchers morphed candidates’ faces with the participant’s own face in a way that remained undetectable to the participant. They found that people who were politically independent or weakly partisan were more likely to prefer the candidates whose faces had been — unbeknownst to them — morphed with their own. 

“This was done a long time ago before the idea of actually doing all of this in real time became a reality,” Scheufele said. But today, “the threshold for producing this stuff is really, really low.” 

Campaigns could micro-target constituents, crafting uniquely persuasive communications or advertisements by tailoring them to a person’s digital footprint or likeness. Darrell West, who studies technology at the nonpartisan Brookings Institution, calls this “precise message targeting,” writing AI will allow campaigns to better focus on “specific voting blocs with appeals that nudge them around particular policies and partisan opinions.”

AI will also quicken the pace of communications and responses, permitting politicians to “respond instantly to campaign developments,” West wrote. “AI can scan the internet, think about strategy, and come up with a hard-hitting appeal” in minutes, “without having to rely on highly paid consultants or expert videographers.”

And because AI technology is more accessible, it’s not just well-funded campaigns or interest groups that might deploy it in elections. Mekela Panditharatne, counsel for the Brennan Center’s Democracy Program, and Noah Giansiracusa, an assistant professor of mathematics and data science, described several ways outside actors might use the technology to deceive or influence voters.

Aside from using deepfakes to fabricate viral controversies, they could produce legions of social media posts about certain issues “to create the illusion of political agreement or the false impression of widespread belief in dishonest election narratives,” Panditharatne and Giansiracusa wrote. They could “deploy tailored chatbots to customize interactions based on voter characteristics.” 

They could also use AI to target elections administrators, either through deluges of complaints from fake constituents or elaborate phishing schemes.

“There is plenty of past election disinformation in the training data underlying current generative AI tools to render them a potential ticking time bomb for future election disinformation,” Panditharatne and Giansiracusa wrote.

For Scheufele, one major concern is timing. It can take seconds for AI to create a deepfake; it can take days for reporters to debunk it. AI-driven disinformation deployed in the days before an election could sway voters in meaningful ways.

By the time people realized the content was fake, Scheufele said, “the election is over and we have absolutely no constitutional way of relitigating it.”

“This is like making the wrong call in the last minute of the Super Bowl and the Patriots win the Super Bowl, even though they shouldn’t have,” Scheufele said. “They’re still going to be Super Bowl champions on Monday even though we all know that the wrong call was made.”

Guardrails of democracy

In the abstract, every single aspect of AI is “totally manageable,” Scheufele said.

“The problem is we’re dealing with so much in such a short period of time because of how quickly that technology develops,” he said. “We simply don’t have the structures in place at the moment.”

But Wisconsin lawmakers could take initial steps toward boosting transparency. 

In May, Washington state passed a law requiring a clear disclaimer about AI’s use in any political ad. Anderson’s team looked to Washington’s law as a model in drafting a Wisconsin bill.

Printed ads with manipulated images will need a disclosure “in letters at least as big as any other letters in the ad,” according to The Spokesman-Review. Manipulated audio must “have an easily understood, spoken warning at the beginning and end of the commercial.” For videos, a text disclosure “must appear for the duration” of the ad.

A similar bill addressing federal elections has been introduced in both chambers of Congress. A March 2020 proposal banning the distribution of deepfakes within 60 days of a federal election and creating criminal penalties went nowhere.

Krug called Washington’s law a “pretty interesting idea.”

“If (an ad is) artificially created, there has to be some sort of a disclaimer,” Krug said.

However, he indicated Republicans may wait to move legislation until after Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, convenes a task force later this year on AI in government.

Sen. Mark Spreitzer, D-Beloit, another elections committee member, noted Wisconsin law already prohibits knowingly making or publishing “a false representation pertaining to a candidate or referendum which is intended or tends to affect voting at an election.”

“I think you could read the plain language of that statute and say that a deepfake would violate it,” he said. “But obviously, whenever you have new technology, I think it’s worth coming back and making explicitly clear that an existing statute is intended to apply to that new technology.”

Just the beginning

Scheufele, Anderson, Spreitzer and Smith all said that Wisconsin should go beyond mandating disclosure of AI in ads.

“The biggest concern is disinformation coming from actors outside of the organized campaigns and political parties,” Spreitzer said. Official entities are easier to regulate, in part because the government already does. 

Additional measures will require a robust global debate, Scheufele said. He likened the urgency of addressing AI to nuclear power. 

“What we never did for nuclear energy is really have a broad public debate about: Should we go there? Should we actually develop nuclear weapons? Should we engage in that arms race?” he said. “For AI, we may still have that opportunity where we really get together and say, ‘Hey, what are the technologies that we’re willing to deploy, that we’re willing to actually make accessible?’ ”

The nonprofit Wisconsin Watch (www.WisconsinWatch.org) collaborates with WPR, PBS Wisconsin, other news media and the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Journalism and Mass Communication. All works created, published, posted or disseminated by Wisconsin Watch do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of UW-Madison or any of its affiliates.

Editor’s note: This story was updated to include Noah Giansiracusa as a co-author of the Brennan Center report.

AI is starting to affect our elections. Wisconsin has yet to take action. is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit and nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletter to get our investigative stories and Friday news roundup.

A viral TikTok claimed Disney World sought to lower the drinking age to 18. President Biden made outsized claims about job creation. A Twitter user impersonated a pharmaceutical giant announcing insulin is free. Russian agents leaked hacked emails from Hillary Clinton’s campaign. 

Each example reflects a type of what has collectively come to be known as “information disorder,” a term encompassing several kinds of misinformation, disinformation and malinformation that plague society. The various forms include propaganda, lies, conspiracies, rumors, hoaxes, hyper-partisan content, falsehoods and manipulated media, according to those who study the disease.

Journalists and academics around the world have dedicated themselves to examining information disorder. And conservative power brokers have begun to attack those efforts, often accusing them of suppressing free speech.

University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers are leading a National Science Foundation-funded project to safeguard democracy by limiting information disorder’s scope and impact. 

As part of the endeavor, Wisconsin Watch, the Capital Times and Snopes are among the organizations that now have dedicated reporters covering how information disorder infects the body politic and destabilizes democracy — and how we can protect ourselves. 

Everyone is susceptible and could pass it along to others. But knowing what to look for and what to do about it can build resilience.

Here’s a guide to help diagnose information disorder, as well as some potential remedies.

Types of information disorder

The concept of information disorder comes from Claire Wardle, a researcher who co-founded First Draft and now leads the Information Futures Lab at Brown University. She developed the term as an alternative to “fake news,” which at one point referred to the Russian disinformation campaign during the 2016 presidential election, but became co-opted by former President Donald Trump to dismiss legitimate news stories.

She identifies three major strains of information disorder: 

Misinformation: False or misleading content spread by those who don’t know it’s false or misleading or without intent to cause harm. First Draft notes that as people share disinformation without realizing it’s false, it can become misinformation. Research shows people are more likely to share misinformation that aligns with their worldview or signals their belonging to an in-group.

Disinformation: Deliberately false content designed to deceive or to harm. According to First Draft, three main factors motivate people to make and spread disinformation: money, political influence or desire to cause chaos.

Malinformation: Factual content spread with the intent to cause harm. It’s often private information spread for corporate or personal interest, such as when someone posts intimate photos of an ex-partner online, an act known as revenge porn. 

What it looks like 

First Draft further breaks down information disorder into seven common forms. 

1. Fabricated content: Completely false or made up content — videos, photographs, stories — made to deceive or do harm.
2. Manipulated content: Genuine information or imagery altered to deceive. 
3. Imposter content: Content such as websites or posts impersonating real organizations or people.
4. False context: Genuine information shared alongside false contextual information, such as sharing stories that are old or from a different place as if they’re current and related to current events.
5. Misleading content: Content that may have genuine elements, or a “kernel of truth,” but are framed, recontextualized or reformulated in deceptive ways. 
6. False connection: Headlines, captions or visual elements that don’t support or accurately represent the content, such as clickbait. 
7. Satire or parody: Joking content that can dupe people into thinking it’s genuine or serious. This becomes more damaging the further it gets removed from its original source.

Josephine Lukito, a professor at University of Texas at Austin who studies mis- and disinformation on social media, said Russian troll campaigns favored false context and misleading content, often sharing real news stories with sensationalized framing to rile up a particular group. 

She recommends looking for a particular news story on Google to see if something similar appears on other outlets. If it’s a genuine event other news outlets will likely have covered it, too. 

Lukito said disinformation is also increasingly spread through videos and images, such as doctored screenshots purporting to be a news outlet posting a story, which can be harder to fact check.

Other imposter content commonly takes the form of websites or social media accounts, said Mike Wagner, a journalism professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Wagner is the lead investigator for the NSF-funded research project in which Wisconsin Watch and the Capital Times are participating. 

“We’ve had misinformation since we’ve had information, and we’ve had people sharing things that aren’t true since they shared things that are true,” Wagner said.

In 2022, after Twitter changed its verification rules to allow anyone to buy a blue check, a tweet purporting to be a pharmaceutical company announcing it had made insulin free went viral. The company’s stock dropped about 4% — although it’s impossible to attribute it solely to the tweet. Months later, the company capped the monthly out-of-pocket price for all consumers. 

Although the person behind the imposter tweet said it was obviously satire, it was effective in part because the blue verification check, username and avatar mimicked the company’s. Other imposters might share other features as well, with only small departures from the real account. The same rules may apply for websites impersonating news outlets or companies, often with a slightly different address being the tell.

Why we’re susceptible

Research shows that our emotions and worldview play a significant role in what information we believe and share.

A headline, Wagner said, can hit “you in an emotional way that makes it hard for you to be motivated to think about why that might be wrong.”

Anxiety, in particular, enhances belief in disinformation and leads to its spread. When people feel uncertainty or fear, they’re more likely to pay attention to information that resonates with their present emotions. 

That also plays into a psychological concept known as cognitive dissonance: the discomfort felt when confronted with information contrary to one’s beliefs. It can lead someone to reject credible information that further threatens those beliefs, instead seeking out comforting, even if false, information.

Even when calm, people tend to believe and share information that supports their worldview, especially if it comes from within their own circles, a phenomenon psychologists refer to as “confirmation bias.”

First Draft compiled several foundational psychological concepts here. They include the “third-person effect,” which means considering others more susceptible to misinformation than oneself, and “fluency,” the tendency to believe information that is easier to process.

Madeline Jalbert, who studies misinformation and social cognition at the University of Washington, said in a webinar that humans assume information is true by default. And we’re more likely to believe misinformation is true when it feels easy to process, such as featuring a clean font and crisp audio quality, when it lacks cues to analyze information carefully and when it meets some of the basic elements we instinctively use to evaluate truth.

The “truth criteria” are:

1. Compatibility: Whether it’s compatible with other things known to be true.
2. Coherence: Whether it “makes sense.”
3. Credibility: Whether it comes from a credible source.
4. Consensus: Whether other people believe it.
5. Evidence: Whether it has supporting evidence.

How to protect yourself

“In this digital era, people are both consumers of information and producers of information,” Lukito said.

Because of that, she said, it’s as important to consider what you share as it is to consider what you consume. That means considering the truthfulness or veracity of content before sharing.

Wagner recommends approaching content with this goal: “Learn the truth.”

Repeating that mantra can help move beyond personal biases, making someone more open to the possibility that their “side” might have flaws and the other side “isn’t the devil,” he said.

It also encourages consideration of the content’s other aspects: the author and their motivations, the source, whether the story supports the headline, whether the cited evidence supports the claim, who is sharing it. The Trust Project, which Wisconsin Watch has joined, developed eight “trust indicators” to consider when reviewing a news story.

“We need to constantly be willing to ask ourselves, ‘Why am I believing this? Does this make sense?’ ” Wagner said.

Lukito recommends having a healthy media diet, an ever-evolving collection of various sources for local, state and national news, as well as specialized publications for topics like economics or technology.

It’s important to distinguish between pieces driven by opinion, speculation or fact, and “absolutely important” that these sources of information have a process for verifying information. And it’s even better if you can seek out some of these sources yourself, rather than only letting a social media algorithm feed you all your information. 

One key technique is “lateral reading,” which involves evaluating a source or content’s credibility by researching their claims on multiple other sites.

We live in a different media ecology than decades prior, one that puts new responsibilities on individuals, Lukito said. 

“This is a new expectation for citizens that we’ve not seen in the past,” she said. It requires energy and labor, but “I certainly think it’s worth it.”

Have you encountered some mis- or disinformation?

Whether online or in real life, we want to hear about it. Wisconsin Watch and the Capital Times will be reporting together and separately on mis- and disinformation in Wisconsin over the coming months, especially with the 2024 presidential election inching closer.

Email tips, questions or feedback to reporters Phoebe Petrovic (disinfo@wisconsinwatch.org) and Erin McGroarty (emcgroarty@captimes.com).

The nonprofit Wisconsin Watch (www.WisconsinWatch.org) collaborates with WPR, PBS Wisconsin, other news media and the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Journalism and Mass Communication. All works created, published, posted or disseminated by Wisconsin Watch do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of UW-Madison or any of its affiliates.

Misinformation, Disinformation: A guide to sorting fiction from reality is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit and nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletter to get our investigative stories and Friday news roundup.

Nat Werth surveyed the “gender identity and theory” section of the handbook for his alma mater, Sheboygan Lutheran High School, with shock and sadness. 

“This was not in the school’s handbook when I attended,” the 2019 graduate and valedictorian said. “Wow, this is gonna make me cry. I cannot believe that this happened.” 

The school’s current handbook dedicates over 1,000 words to a policy that uses Biblical teachings as the basis for its anti-transgender policies. 

Werth recalled that the handbook from his time as a student had, at most, a line about gender identity. But parts of the new anti-LGBTQ+ policies felt familiar. 

As Werth was preparing to graduate, he drafted a valedictory speech in which he planned to come out as gay and critique homophobic Biblical interpretations as archaic, mistranslated or misconstrued. Administrators canceled his remarks.

Sheboygan Lutheran is a private school that receives public funding through tuition vouchers, which currently subsidize nearly 40% of its students. Administrators ignored repeated requests by phone and email for an interview. When a reporter recently again asked Executive Director Paul Gnan for a comment in person, Gnan smiled and said: “Absolutely not.” 

Across Wisconsin, four voucher programs serve about 52,000 voucher students, which comprises 6% of students at public schools; 95% of the participating schools are religious. 

Diploma in hand, Werth began researching Wisconsin’s voucher programs. He learned that private schools receiving public funds can legally discriminate against LGBTQ+ students, and that the state Department of Public Instruction is largely powerless to stop it. And he went to the press. 

“I didn’t want stuff like that to happen again,” he said. “For people to feel backed into a corner and powerless in a situation, where, like, that just shouldn’t be the case.” 

Werth’s story went viral. He got to meet Jennifer Lopez and speak with Sen. Tammy Baldwin. And when he spoke about his experience, Werth urged Wisconsinites to demand their representatives change the law. 

“It’s not that I’m against school choice,” Werth said. “It’s that everybody has human rights and that they should all be protected no matter what, especially the rights of kids who go to private and parochial (voucher) schools in Wisconsin.” 

Discrimination justified through Christianity

There is no state law protecting LGBTQ+ students from discrimination once enrolled in a voucher school. And the federal Title IX law exempts religious institutions from complying with the anti-discrimination law if it runs counter to their religious beliefs. 

This leaves religious voucher schools like Sheboygan Lutheran free to discipline or even expel gay or transgender students for expressing their gender identity or their sexual orientation. A Wisconsin Watch investigation has found that many have policies that allow such treatment. 

Wisconsin Watch reviewed public materials for about one-third of the state’s 373 voucher schools and found that four out of 10 had policies or statements that appeared to target LGBTQ+ students for disparate treatment. Some had explicitly discriminatory policies, such as expelling students for being gay or transgender. 

All 50 of the voucher schools with anti-LGBTQ+ stances identified by the news organization are Christian, with denominations including Lutherans and Catholics, among others. Almost every school cites religious principles as a basis for their positions.

Suzanne Eckes, an education law professor at University of Madison-Wisconsin, argued that language casting gay or transgender identities or behavior as sinful, even without policies codifying the perspective, “has a discriminatory intent behind it.”

She also pointed out how some policies, although not explicit, could result in LGBTQ+ students being treated inconsistently from others. For example, some schools specifically ban all sexual contact outside of a straight, cisgender marriage.

Green Bay Adventist Junior Academy, which has nearly 68% of students on vouchers, says that it “does not discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation (in admissions), but does discriminate on the basis of sexual misconduct,” which includes “homosexual conduct.” Reached by phone, a representative of the school said: “We have no comment.”

Werth, now approaching graduation from college, said his experience, although difficult, was not as hostile as the policies now in place at his alma mater and elsewhere.

“There are plenty of kids in much worse situations, experiencing much worse acts of discrimination, and who aren’t able to speak up for themselves,” he said. “My story’s not even that bad, compared to, like, the trans kids who get expelled for just existing. Or for the gay kids who get beat up all the time and aren’t defended by their school’s administration.” 

Sheboygan Lutheran’s current handbook said it would “take the necessary precautions, in accord with the policies of this document, to avoid bullying and to protect the integrity of those who may express tension or concerns about their biological sex.” 

Research shows that LGBTQ+ youth experience “significantly greater rates” of bullying and suicide attempts than their straight and cisgender peers, according to The Trevor Project. Affirming LGBTQ+ students’ identities can reduce those rates, the advocacy group says.

Transgender students special target of policies

Sheboygan Lutheran’s anti-trans policy credits its approach to the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod. 

These policies call for the school to refrain from using the chosen pronouns of any transgender student, employee, personnel, volunteer or contracted vendor. It prohibits puberty blockers on school property if taken for transition-related care. And it requires students to use the facility, athletic team or dress code that “matches their biological sex,” although it does have “individual-use bathrooms which are available for all members of the respective community.”

“Why are they going out of their way to make people feel overtly excluded when they also have individual bathrooms? Why can’t you just say that?” Werth said as he read the policy.

At least 17 other schools reviewed by Wisconsin Watch have anti-transgender policies similar to Sheboygan Lutheran’s. Three carve out exemptions for intersex students with a required note from their doctors. 

The principal for one of those schools, Green Bay Trinity Lutheran, declined an interview twice by email, saying: “We are very busy filling the gap left by the teacher and substitute shortage and have no time for these inquiries.” He said the school operates its voucher programs “fully in accordance with the law” and the beliefs of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod.

In recent years, anti-trans laws, such as those banning best-practice medical care or restricting athletic participation, have proliferated, thanks to a highly funded and coordinated far-right campaign. Policies regarding students’ gender identity in public schools have also attracted attention, with transgender youth and allies protesting efforts to deny a person’s chosen name or pronouns, or require parental consent to do so. 

Reviewing his alma mater’s anti-transgender policy, Werth reflected: “If I was a kid with gender dysphoria, or even, like, questioning how people refer to me using my pronouns or if I wanted to use a different name and I read this, if this was what the school provided to me, that would have been extremely traumatic.”

An anti-trans evening

Sheboygan Lutheran has hosted at least one anti-trans event for the public. In April, the school welcomed Christian clinical psychologist Beverly Yahnke, who gave a talk titled “Transgenderism and Sexualization in Our Schools.” 

Promotional materials contained false information, claiming that “Most of our public schools are allowing students to join Gender and Sexualization Alliances without parental or guardian knowledge or permission.” The extracurricular clubs, which bring together LGBTQ+ youth and their student allies, are called Gender and Sexuality or Sexualities Alliances. 

Yahnke cited the American College of Pediatricians, a fringe group of anti-LGBTQ+ physicians that the Southern Poverty Law Center designates a hate group.

And the falsehoods were exhaustive. Yahnke called being transgender a “delusion.” She described the rise in the number of transgender children — who comprise a tiny fraction of the nation’s population — as an “epidemic” like ebola or COVID-19 that “appears to be contagious” with “consequences that can cause illness, self-harm and even death.” 

She described transition-related health care as “primitive” as a lobotomy, which she graphically described, and characterized people who have received desired transition-related care as “irreversibly damaged” and “left … in a wasteland.” 

In a striking moment, she also argued that children should go through natural puberty, without blockers, “to discover what it feels like to be a man, to feel their shoulders broaden to take out their little sister and smack her against the wall.” When an audience member reacted in shock, Yahnke added: “In playful jest, of course.”

Addressing the private school auditorium, Yahnke added to applause: “If your first, second, third, fourth, fifth grade child is learning things, saying things, reading things that flies in the face of the faith they’ve been given by our most Holy God, it’s time to move them from the public school.”

‘Unwanted and unwelcome at school’ 

Ali Muldrow, co-executive director of the LGBTQ+ youth advocacy organization GSAFE, argues the anti-LGBTQ+ policies identified by Wisconsin Watch harm all students — whether cis, trans, straight or gay.

Muldrow and Werth both oppose supporting discriminatory institutions through publicly funded vouchers. 

“I just want to do everything within my power to change this system that facilitates oppression with taxpayer dollars,” Werth said. “And I guess until that day happens, I won’t stop telling my story, just because it’s not right. It’s unjust.” 

The nonprofit Wisconsin Watch (www.WisconsinWatch.org) collaborates with WPR, PBS Wisconsin, other news media and the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Journalism and Mass Communication. All works created, published, posted or disseminated by Wisconsin Watch do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of UW-Madison or any of its affiliates.

‘Unwanted and unwelcome’: Anti-LGBTQ+ policies common at Wisconsin voucher schools  is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit and nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletter to get our investigative stories and Friday news roundup.

Listen to reporter Phoebe Petrovic discuss this story on WUWM’s show Lake Effect and on WPR.

As an advocacy specialist at Disability Rights Wisconsin, Joanne Juhnke regularly finds herself on the phone with parents concerned about their children’s treatment at school. 

Most complaints concern public schools, which enroll the majority of students. State funding for special education has shrunk, forcing districts to struggle to provide services, and disparate treatment of students with disabilities at public schools persists. But in public school, families have a state body to appeal to: the Department of Public Instruction.

DPI is far less helpful in disputes with private schools, which under state law can legally discriminate against students who need certain disability accommodations — or even kick them out. This applies even to private schools that receive taxpayer-funded tuition vouchers to educate students.

The calls Juhnke receives from voucher families often contain the same story. A family has enrolled a child with disabilities in a private school. Administrators have begun pressuring the student to leave or have kicked them out, something public schools cannot do. The parents are shocked. They’re sure the schools can’t do that. 

Many times, Juhnke has to tell them: Yes, they can. 

“You went into this school choice program thinking that you were the one, as the parents, who have the choice,” she said. “Really, on the other end, the school holds more choice cards than you do, and you’re coming out on the wrong side of that.”

Students vulnerable to expulsion, lack of accommodation

Private schools participating in any of the four state voucher programs — the Milwaukee, Racine and Wisconsin Parental Choice Programs and the Special Needs Scholarship Program — may legally expel students with disabilities if staff determines they cannot accommodate their needs with minor adjustments or deem their behavior too disruptive. 

And as upsetting as this may feel to parents, Juhnke said it’s even worse for the students themselves.

“It’s very disruptive,” she said, adding that “stability for a student with disabilities is often even more important” than for those without disabilities.  

And expelled students’ funding may take time to follow them back to public schools, as voucher payments correspond to pupil counts made early in each semester.

Reviewing public materials for about one-third of the state’s 373 voucher schools, Wisconsin Watch found that about 15% had policies or statements appearing to discriminate against students with disabilities, often citing limited capacity to meet their needs. This figure omits schools that make no mention of disability accommodation. 

“We know not all schools in these programs employ such practices, but the fact that the law allows it is unacceptable,” said DPI communications director Abigail Swetz. “We owe it to our learners and their families to make the necessary changes to ensure these schools provide access to all children, regardless of their ability.”

Between 2013 and 2020, DPI received several complaints alleging disability discrimination at voucher schools — but it determined it had jurisdiction to act in just one of them. Wisconsin Watch has learned the agency quietly suspended its complaint process in 2020 when it comes to students with disabilities attending voucher schools. 

Nicholas Kelly, the president of the state’s leading education privatization advocacy group School Choice Wisconsin, did not answer specific questions but disagreed that private schools discriminate. He shared a statement that read, in part: “Fundamentally, parental choice and educational freedom provide accountability. If parents or students are not satisfied with the education they receive they can choose another school.”

Juhnke and her organization argue that legal discrimination is a “fundamental issue” of the voucher program: “Discrimination is, on some level, baked into the cake.” 

“The requirements on choice schools have been different for students with disabilities from the very inception of the voucher program,” she said. “We have two parallel school systems: one of which is oriented toward serving students with disabilities and the other which never has been.” 

Enrolled one minute, expelled the next?

State law does not prohibit discrimination against students with disabilities at voucher schools. Federal law only requires minimal accommodations, far less than what it requires of public schools, and only applies to recipients of federal funds, such as subsidies to run a lunch program.

When a private school exercises its legal right to expel a student with disabilities, Juhnke’s clients have little recourse. 

The fact that students with disabilities waive legal protections when taking a voucher is one reason Disability Rights Wisconsin is “deeply concerned” about the state’s voucher programs, even the Special Needs Scholarship Program. 

Drafted by the conservative American Legislative Exchange Council, the scholarship program specifically serves students with disabilities. 

Wisconsin’s program requires families receive a document detailing the rights their child will lose, Juhnke said “that doesn’t sink in” until it’s too late. And overall, while the program facilitates private schools in serving more students with disabilities, and expands access to schools dedicated to educating them, she said “it also means that more public funding is going to schools that don’t have to follow the same rules.”

As with LGBTQ+ discrimination, state law requires private schools to restrict admissions considerations of voucher students to statutorily described characteristics, such as residence and income. The statewide program always includes a random lottery, and the Milwaukee and Racine programs include that if the number of applicants exceeds the seats available. 

Yet in practice, the line appears blurred. Said DPI’s Swetz: “The scenario of a student enrolling as a (voucher) student in a private school one minute and being expelled the next is, in fact, possible.”

‘We will not be moving forward with enrollment’

The handbook for Milwaukee’s St. Joan Antida High School, an all girls school with nearly 99% of students on vouchers, states: “Students may be admitted under the Parental Choice Program, but may not be suitable for enrollment if the school cannot meet the needs of the student with minor adjustment to the curriculum.” 

In 2019, a parent complained to DPI of disability discrimination at the school, although it’s unclear from the record if the student was enrolled.

That same year, DPI heard from parents about St. Leonard School in Muskego, which has just under 18% of its students on vouchers. They alleged they were blocked from enrolling their children — it’s unclear whether they were seeking vouchers — solely on the basis of sensory issues. 

Following a school tour, they received an email from the principal, which reportedly stated: “After much prayer and consideration, we will not be moving forward with enrollment for your children at this time. This was not an easy decision. We wish you all the best in your search for a better fit.” 

The parents claimed the school declined to give an explanation. Neither the school nor the Archdiocese of Milwaukee responded to requests for comment.

Exclusion described as a matter of practicality

Although 17 of the 19 voucher schools with policies discriminating against students with disabilities are Christian, none appeared to root their exclusion in theology. (The two secular schools identified are both Waldorf schools, a nondenominational private school prioritizing arts and nature curricula.) Instead, disability discrimination is often phrased in practical, if regretful, terms. 

Fond du Lac Christian School, for example, which has about 63% of its students on vouchers, stated in its 2017-18 handbook that it “desires to serve the needs of students who would be considered at a level of need for which we are equipped to accommodate.” It also stated it “reserves the right to expel any student diagnosed with behavioral disorders … or significant learning disabilities” whom the school cannot “adequately facilitate,” calling it a matter of “recognizing (their) limitations.” 

Fond du Lac Christian blocked a reporter from contacting the school via email and hung up on the phone, so Wisconsin Watch has been unable to obtain a current handbook.

Some schools claimed they did not discriminate on the basis of disability, only to detail policies that exclude students on that basis.

Milwaukee’s Tamarack Waldorf School, with 85% of its students on vouchers, considers working to “increase the diversity of our school community and promote equity and inclusion for all community members regardless of… disability status” one of its guiding principles, according to the current handbook. But the document also acknowledges the school may expel students whose “special needs are greater than the school’s ability to meet them.” 

DPI received two complaints alleging disability-based discrimination at the school in 2018 and 2019. 

Tamarack staff did not respond to emails and a phone message. The Association of Waldorf Schools of North America, which accredits the school, declined to comment on specifics but said it is committed to nondiscrimination on the basis of disability: “As an association, we believe that valuing and supporting diversity, equity and inclusion comprise a journey of both moral and educational importance.”

A failed attempt at accountability

DPI says it may intervene only to stop discrimination against voucher students with disabilities in the admissions process, not after enrollment. In 2011, Disability Rights Wisconsin, along with the American Civil Liberties Union and others, filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Justice seeking to change that. 

Calling on the DOJ to investigate Milwaukee’s voucher program, the ACLU alleged that “many families of students with disabilities are unaware of their rights to use vouchers for private schools, the schools receiving vouchers are not monitored for compliance with the ADA, and students with minor disabilities have been routinely suspended and expelled from the private schools,” according to its website. 

The result, they claimed, was “systematically excluding students with disabilities from participating in the voucher program and segregating them in public schools in disproportionate numbers.”

But after a couple years, little changed. “My sense is that it didn’t move the needle as much as we would have liked,” said Juhnke, who was not with the organization at the time. 

Communications between the DOJ and DPI show that federal attorneys instructed the state agency to take a number of actions to monitor the voucher programs and enforce compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act. 

“Our position,” they wrote, “is that DPI must do more to enforce the federal statutory and regulatory requirements that govern the treatment of students with disabilities who participate in the school choice program,” including private and religious schools.

DPI responded that although it was “fully committed to ensuring” nondiscrimination of students with disabilities, it believed that it lacked authority — under state and federal law, as well as court precedent — to fulfill the federal government’s demands. 

“DPI has significant concerns about the DPI’s authority to ensure that Choice schools do not discriminate against students with disabilities,” the agency’s chief legal counsel wrote in a letter.

Years later, Jeffrey Spitzer-Resnick, a civil rights attorney and education advocate who filed the original complaint for Disability Rights Wisconsin, finds the conclusion “highly unfortunate and reprehensible.” He believes the state agency does not need explicit state authority to uphold federal law.

“If the U.S. DOJ says, ‘Hey, your state program violates federal law, but we’re going to look to your DPI to assure us, because you’re the one who runs the program, that it stops violating the law,’ DPI should have done it. But they didn’t,” he said. 

But DPI’s Swetz challenged that premise, saying by email: “DOJ has not concluded the private school choice program violates federal law. In many ways, the DPI wishes it would — then perhaps we would have leverage to make changes. That leverage would help kids because the current situation does not.”

One change DPI undertook was to establish a system to collect complaints about alleged disability discrimination in voucher schools. Juhnke referenced it in an interview with Wisconsin Watch.

But unbeknownst to Juhnke and her colleagues at Disability Rights Wisconsin, DPI quietly closed that complaint mechanism in 2020. In a letter sent to the federal DOJ, Assistant State Superintendent Robert Soldner said the agency lacked the statutory authority to act in all but one complaint it had received.

The agency was ending its formal complaint procedure, the letter said, to “avoid giving complainants false hope that DPI has the ability to address their concerns.” 

The nonprofit Wisconsin Watch (www.WisconsinWatch.org) collaborates with WPR, PBS Wisconsin, other news media and the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Journalism and Mass Communication. All works created, published, posted or disseminated by Wisconsin Watch do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of UW-Madison or any of its affiliates.

Federal, state law permit disability discrimination in Wisconsin voucher schools is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit and nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletter to get our investigative stories and Friday news roundup.

Editor’s note: This story was updated Friday, May 5 to include additional response from School Choice Wisconsin.

In 2022, the two Fox Valley Lutheran High School students were a few months from graduating when they got called into the dean’s office. 

One was the cheerleading captain and National Honor Society inductee; the other a basketball player, homecoming queen and student council member. Both were accomplished and well-respected students. 

Yet in separate meetings with the dean, they learned they faced expulsion — not for cheating or plagiarizing or breaking the law, but because administrators suspected the young women of dating. 

The school’s handbook states that “any sexual misconduct,” including “homosexual behavior… on or off campus, will be treated as a serious violation of God’s will and may be grounds for disciplinary action or expulsion.” 

State law prohibits public schools from discriminating against students on the basis of sex, sexual orientation or disability, but it does not extend the same protections to private schools — even those receiving public funds. 

Fox Valley Lutheran in Appleton is one of 373 of Wisconsin private schools that currently receive public funding through tuition vouchers. According to this year’s preliminary numbers, they serve more than 52,000 voucher students, which amounts to 6% of all students at Wisconsin publicly funded schools. About one-fifth of voucher schools have 90% or more of their students on vouchers, what one scholar describes as “private in name only.”

Wisconsin spent about $443 million this year on the four choice programs. Some Republicans, including 2022 gubernatorial candidate Tim Michels, have pushed for “universal” school choice, which would allow any Wisconsin student, regardless of income, to attend a private school at taxpayer expense. 

The cheerleading captain, who spoke to Wisconsin Watch on the condition of anonymity to avoid harassment, recalled the dean saying he’d go easy on them because they were good students. The pair could remain enrolled and graduate, so long as they broke up and spoke with a pastor — and after he outed them to their parents.

Leaders from Fox Valley Lutheran did not respond to a request for comment on this account.

The next day, dozens of seniors quietly protested the decision by wearing their school-issued class T-shirts, which were tie-dyed rainbow. The next week, the young woman found herself again meeting with the principal, athletic director and her parents.

She suspected it was “retaliation after the whole rainbow shirt thing” because they’d believed breaking up, religious counseling and forced outing was the “extent” of their punishment. 

The principal, Alan Nolte, began with a prayer that asked the “Heavenly Father” to bless the meeting as they “help to build (the student) up,” according to a recording of the meeting. 

Nolte then proceeded to ban her from any extracurriculars or school activities that were “a little bit more public in nature” for the rest of the year.

He said their relationship was a sin because “the Bible is clear,” but that the administration was treating it as any other code of conduct violation.

“Our chief concern,” Nolte said. “is your spiritual welfare.” 

In an interview, the student said she did not mind a religious school instructing a student to meet with a pastor — but she objected to a taxpayer-funded school meting out punishment based on “moral issues.”  

‘Little can be done’

The cheerleading captain didn’t know it, but another student had reached out on her and her girlfriend’s behalf, asking Gov. Tony Evers for help.

“This week two fantastic athletes, (REDACTED) and (REDACTED) were banned from all team sports for being in a homosexual relationship,” the student wrote in an online complaint. “The entire student body is very upset about this, as this could affect (their) careers in sports when it should not.” 

The student said: “This is discrimination, and I believe it should be addressed on a government level, as the school receives funding from school choice.”

In an email to Wisconsin Watch, Fox Valley Lutheran’s president said the “details” of the complaint were “not accurate,” but he declined to say how.

Records show Evers’ staff sought guidance from the state Department of Public Instruction on how to respond, but acknowledged that “likely little can be done as it is a private institution.” 

In response to questions from Evers’ staff, DPI said it lacked “apparent authority” to intervene on behalf of the student-athletes. It recommended the concerned student contact the school’s governing board or advocacy groups who might connect them with attorneys.

The first governor to raise the LGBTQ+ flag over Wisconsin’s Capitol could not help the gay students. They pretended to break up and laid low until graduation. They’re still dating today.

‘Choice’ for some, not all

Wisconsin is considered the birthplace of the “school choice” movement. The nation’s first publicly funded private voucher program began in Milwaukee in 1990. Initial restrictions, such as limiting vouchers to secular schools, have disappeared as the program has expanded. Today, 32 schools — including at least one with an anti-LGBTQ+ stance — have their entire student bodies on publicly funded vouchers.

Legal discrimination against students who are LGBTQ+ or have disabilities results from a lack of state-level protections; a federal exemption that allows religious entities to discriminate against LGBTQ+ students and another that requires schools taking federal funds to make only minor adjustments for students with disabilities; and a state education agency constrained by punctilious rules and decades of litigation.

“It’s unfortunate,” DPI communications director Abigail Swetz told Wisconsin Watch by email. “We want children to be included, welcomed, and safe in all schools, especially those that receive public funding. It is what we expect as good stewards of public dollars and as educators who value all children.” 

The president of School Choice Wisconsin, Nicholas Kelly, said by email that his organization “support(s) and encourage(s) compliance with all rules and processes set in place to address issues of this nature.” He did not respond to specific questions.

After publication, Kelly disputed that private schools discriminate. He provided a statement that read, in part, “Fundamentally, parental choice and educational freedom provide accountability. If parents or students are not satisfied with the education they receive they can choose another school.”

Wisconsin Watch reviewed public materials for about one-third of the state’s voucher schools and found that nearly half had policies or statements that appeared to discriminate against students who are LGBTQ+ or have disabilities, often citing religious principles or lack of capacity to accommodate certain conditions. 

Some handbooks say administrators may decline to enroll students with disabilities whose needs they cannot meet. Others say they might refuse enrollment to students whose families support LGBTQ+ people. Some, like Fox Valley Lutheran, might expel students who engage in “homosexual behavior” off campus. One will even expel students if their parents’ conduct is “contrary to the Bible.” 

“Let’s just stop calling it a ‘choice program,’ ” said Jeffrey Spitzer-Resnick, a civil rights attorney and disability education advocate. “And let’s call it a private discriminatory education program funded with your tax dollars.” 

Several other organizations that support voucher schools ignored repeated requests for comment.

Every voucher school contacted ignored or declined an interview to clarify its positions, as did every association, church or accreditor representing them. Some provided brief, written statements. Two hung up on calls, and one blocked a reporter’s emails. 

In records obtained from DPI, a Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod pastor said he believes “that lifestyles and current viewpoints of LGBTQ individuals clearly oppose the teachings of Scripture and therefore constitute sin that must be addressed. … Within our circles, we would say that ‘this is not discrimination but rather love practiced in the same way a parent would raise a child and announce harm when it is near.’ ” 

Legal scholars and advocates for the LGBTQ+ and disability communities all objected to public dollars supporting institutions with such policies.

“I think it’s a common sense approach — and that the general public would typically agree — that a school that receives taxpayer money shouldn’t be able to discriminate against certain historically marginalized students,” said Suzanne Eckes, an education law professor at University of Wisconsin-Madison. 

“LGBTQ folks are members of the community, we’re taxpayers,” said Ali Muldrow, a Madison School Board member and co-executive director of GSAFE, which advocates on behalf of LGBTQ+ youth in education. “We shouldn’t have to contribute to entities and institutions that discriminate against us.”

‘Am I allowed to expel a student who comes out of the closet?’

Wisconsin lawmakers have declined at least three times to stop voucher schools from discriminating against LGBTQ+ students or those with disabilities. Proposals in 2007, 2013 and 2015 all died without public hearings. Leaders of the education committees in both chambers did not respond to emails from Wisconsin Watch asking if they condone the status quo.

Establishment of all four of the state’s voucher programs — the Milwaukee, Racine and statewide Wisconsin Parental Choice Programs and the Special Needs Scholarship Program — was tucked into larger budget bills and signed by Republican Govs. Tommy Thompson and Scott Walker. 

State law requires voucher schools to comply with a federal code prohibiting discrimination based on race, color or national origin, but no other protected classes. And while they cannot discriminate against LGBTQ+ students or those with disabilities during admissions — limited by statutorily described eligibility criteria — they may do so once that student is enrolled.

It is even legal for a private school to enroll a voucher student “one minute” and expel them “the next,” confirmed Swetz.

Over the years, records show, faith leaders considering joining the voucher program have inquired about this distinction in blunt terms. 

The Rev. Brett Naumann, pastor of Trinity Lutheran Church in Kiel, asked if he could expel a student who came out as gay or transgender, “provided that it is clearly laid out in our handbook.” A DPI consultant responded: “Once a student has been offered a seat and the student accepts, school policies apply.” 

Naumann’s school is not currently a member of the voucher program, and he referred all questions to the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod (WELS), whose spokesperson, Lee Hitter, did not answer specific questions.

He provided a statement that said, in part: “We operate our schools in accordance with all state and federal laws… Prospective families can determine if the mission and beliefs of WELS schools meet the needs of their families and whether to enroll their children.” 

WELS considers it a sin to be transgender or gay. Wisconsin Watch found 17 WELS schools participating in the voucher program with anti-LGBTQ+ policies. 

Enrollment required; expulsion OK

DPI’s authority to protect students who are LGBTQ+ or have disabilities at voucher schools stops at enrollment. 

Take Fond du Lac Christian School. The school sought to join the voucher program in 2017, submitting materials indicating it would deny enrollment to voucher students who were gay or transgender. A DPI consultant directed the school to change the policy and resubmit, as it could only base voucher admissions on family income, prior year enrollment, prior attendance at a voucher school, residency and age. 

The official complied, adding a disclaimer that exempted voucher students from this anti-LGBTQ+ admissions requirement, while maintaining it for privately paying students — a distinction Wisconsin Watch found elsewhere. 

As permitted by law, Fond du Lac Christian School kept in its 2017-18 handbook an eight-point anti-LGBTQ+ policy against enrolled students, as well as parents, employees and members, which bans them from “practicing” their gay or transgender identities. 

Today, about 63% of Fond du Lac Christian School’s students are on vouchers. The current handbook is not publicly available, and school administrator Luke Wagner and other staff blocked a reporter from emailing them after asking for the policy. A receptionist hung up on the same reporter when inquiring by phone.

A ‘cautious’ DPI

DPI risks a lawsuit if its response to claims of discrimination appears to overstep its authority as explicitly described in statute. And a lawsuit, DPI’s Swetz said by email, could create “bad law (court precedent) that would further harm kids.”

DPI also can’t establish rules granting itself additional authority without agreement from the Republican-controlled Legislature.

In the 1990s, at the beginning of the state’s first voucher program, then-State Superintendent of Public Instruction Bert Grover crafted a rule requiring participating private schools to serve students with disabilities similarly to public schools. But it was short lived, with a judge deciding Grover lacked the authority to establish such a rule.

And even after the U.S. Department of Justice ordered DPI in 2013 to end discrimination based on disability in its voucher school program, the agency said it lacked the specific statutory authority to act.

“There is this long-standing pattern in the space of courts and the Legislature of looking for ways to limit DPI’s authority,” said Elisabeth Lambert, attorney and founder of the Wisconsin Education Law and Policy Hub. “All (DPI) can do is apply these very specific procedural mandates that are written into the statute, and there’s no authority outside that.” 

This history has made DPI, in Lambert’s view, “cautious” and “defensive.” Spitzer-Resnick, the other education attorney, has a blunter description: “completely wimpy.” 

“We have to be cautious,” Swetz said. “When it comes to the private school choice programs, we so much as sneeze, and we get sued, and then more kids get hurt.”

‘We operate under what is written in state statutes’

DPI declined to weigh in even when presented with possible violations of state law uncovered by Wisconsin Watch.

Faith Christian School in Williams Bay, which has 17% of its student body on vouchers, requires all families to undergo the school’s admissions process, including providing a “Christian testimony” from one parent, a student/family interview and agreement with the school’s anti-LGBTQ+ and anti-abortion statement of faith. 

State law does not permit private schools to place these additional requirements on voucher students prior to enrollment.

Faith Christian School also vows to leave the voucher program if the state dictates it cannot make enrollment or admissions decisions “based solely on a student’s views or behavior related to … homosexuality; gender; and sexual identity, including the student’s own gender identification.” State law already prohibits that.

Peace Lutheran School in Hartford has a similar application process to Faith Christian, requiring parents to “permit their child to be instructed in the doctrines of Holy Scripture,” as taught by the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod, including “biblical truths” about “homosexuality, same-sex marriage, evolution, pre-marital sex, drug abuse, and the like.”

State law specifically requires voucher schools to honor a voucher family’s request to opt out of religious activities and instruction.

Swetz, DPI’s communications director, said whether Faith Christian’s approach or similar approaches violate state law comes down to timing. 

“If these policies are applied as part of reviewing the student’s Choice eligibility and before the random selection process for the program, then it would be considered a violation,” she said by email. But if it came after the random lottery, it was fine.

Added Swetz: “Wisconsin DPI cannot weigh in on whether certain school’s policies are legal or illegal because we operate under what is written in state statutes.” 

Faith Christian School did not respond to emails or phone messages. But a spokesperson for Association of Christian Schools International, which provides its accreditation, said “it is not discrimination for Christian schools to teach and live out the truths of the historic Christian faith with respect to marriage and human sexuality.”

Federal disability protections limited

Federal law ostensibly provides protections to students with disabilities, but various exemptions limit the effect.

Education legal scholars, lawyers and disability rights activists say that ultimately, when students with disabilities opt out of public school, they waive their most robust protections to an equal education.

Religious schools — nearly all of those receiving Wisconsin vouchers — are exempt from federal laws barring discrimination based on disability unless they take federal funds, and even then, the law requires only “minor adjustments.”

Fond du Lac Christian School, for example, states it “desires to serve” those it is “equipped to accommodate,” but “is not qualified to adequately address all learning disabilities, behavioral disorders or emotional disturbances.” Like Prairie Hill Waldorf School, it reserves the right to expel students if it determines the school cannot meet their needs. 

Joanne Juhnke, an advocacy specialist at Disability Rights Wisconsin, said her organization “fairly regularly” receives calls from parents asking, “ ‘Oh my goodness, can they actually do this?’ ”

Even parents who enrolled their children on Special Needs Scholarship Program vouchers, which lists the rights of students with disabilities in the program compared to public schools, can feel blindsided.

“If you have any memory left of that plain black-and-white document that said you’ve given up some of your rights, it can still come as a surprise to you,” Juhnke said.

How Title IX protects religious freedom, allows LGBTQ+ discrimination

When it comes to LGBTQ+ protections, private religious institutions that receive federal funding are exempt from Title IX, the federal law barring gender-based discrimination in education, if complying with the law would violate a school’s religious tenets. This year, 95% of the state’s voucher schools are religious, Wisconsin Watch found.

Immanuel Lutheran School of Brookfield, which has 71% of its students on vouchers, embodies the exemption. Its handbook tells families that to receive federally subsidized free and reduced lunch, it must display a poster professing it does not discriminate on the basis of gender identity or sexual orientation. 

But alongside what they call the “offending poster” is one reaffirming the school’s Christian beliefs that it is a sin to be gay or trans. Elsewhere, the school’s handbook warns that pupils should not “intentionally present their physical features or dress to be opposite his/her sex at conception.”

The basis of a religious exemption to non-discrimination laws has a fraught history. Scholars Suzanne Eckes and Julie Mead write that in the mid-20th century, segregationists attempted to use the theory of “sincerely held religious beliefs” to justify exclusion of Black students. In 1983, the Supreme Court determined private religious schools cannot justify discrimination through faith and still claim public benefits, such as an IRS tax exemption.

Today, Eckes and Mead believe the question has moved to LGBTQ+ students. There’s a potential for litigation challenging Title IX’s religious exemption to LGBTQ+ discrimination, “in the same way that we saw in the ‘50s, ‘60s, all the way up through the early ‘80s of African-American students who weren’t being admitted to private schools,” Eckes said. 

Mead argues that despite the various obstacles DPI faces, Wisconsin has a legal obligation to prevent discrimination within the voucher programs because they are public, state-administered programs.

Mead and Eckes have proposed passing state and federal laws prohibiting private schools taking public funds from discriminating against students who are LGBTQ+ or have disabilities. 

But how that might stand against Title IX’s religious exemption is unclear. As of 2021, Maryland was the nation’s only state to ban discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity in voucher schools. It is currently defending its position in court. 

The nonprofit Wisconsin Watch (www.WisconsinWatch.org) collaborates with WPR, PBS Wisconsin, other news media and the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Journalism and Mass Communication. All works created, published, posted or disseminated by Wisconsin Watch do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of UW-Madison or any of its affiliates.

False choice: Wisconsin taxpayers support schools that can discriminate  is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

Voucher schools are private schools that use taxpayer dollars to subsidize the cost of private education for K4-12 students from lower-income families in the form of a voucher. The payments go directly from the state to the school based on the number of voucher students enrolled at the school at the beginning of each semester. 

Parents who qualify may choose to send their children to private voucher schools instead of their local public school.

In Wisconsin, voucher schools are those currently participating in at least one of four state-run, state-funded programs: the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program, the Racine Parental Choice Program, the Wisconsin Parental Choice Program and the Special Needs Scholarship (SNSP) Program. 

For 2023-24, the annual voucher payment is $8,399 for K-8 students, and the schools cannot charge additional tuition from these families. For grade 9-12 students, the annual payment is $9,045, and schools may charge additional tuition if the family’s income exceeds 220% of the federal poverty level, which is $61,050 for a family of four.

Voucher schools cannot charge voucher students fees for registration, but it may charge “reasonable fees for certain personal use items,” according to the Department of Public Instruction. 

There are 373 participating schools for the 2022-23 school year. According to a Wisconsin Watch analysis, 95% of the currently participating schools are religious. Voucher students have a legal right to opt-out of religious activity.

These programs often are referred to as “choice” programs or “choice schools.” Because there are additional educational programs advocates refer to as “school choice,” Wisconsin Watch has chosen to use the narrow, specific term “voucher.”

What makes a student eligible for a voucher:

All students must meet certain eligibility criteria, such as residency, income and age. 

For the 2023-24 academic year, the Milwaukee and Racine voucher programs cap family income at 300% of the federal poverty level, which is $83,250 for a family of four, and the statewide voucher program caps it at 220%, which is $61,050 for a family of four.

Students in the SNSP must also have a disability as reflected by an Individualized Education Program (IEP) or services plan. 

Private schools may not consider factors beyond what the statutes describe when making admissions decisions. In the Milwaukee and Racine programs, if there are more voucher applicants than available seats, the school must do a random drawing. This means private schools are not supposed to consider a voucher applicant’s disability or LGBTQ+ status in the admissions process.

What the voucher program costs the state: 

Funding for the statewide and Racine voucher programs and the Special Needs Scholarship Program comes out of the funding for public schools. Districts levy the per student amount to cover the total cost of vouchers, and that total is deducted from the district’s overall aid from the state.

The Milwaukee voucher program is funded through state general purpose revenue and local funding, and also reduces the amount of aid to the public school district, according to the Legislative Fiscal Bureau.

In the 2022-23 school year, Wisconsin spent about $443 million on the four choice programs. 

The latest available numbers from DPI show in the 2021-22 school year, Wisconsin spent $7,728 in state revenue per public school pupil. By comparison, the voucher payments that year were

$8,336 in kindergarten through eighth grade, and $8,982 in grades nine through 12th in the Milwaukee, Racine and statewide programs, and $13,013 for Special Needs Scholarship Program vouchers.  

If your child is part of the LGBTQ+ community, they may be legally discriminated against as a voucher student.

After enrollment, LGBTQ+ students attending voucher schools may legally be discriminated against due to their sexual orientation or gender identity.

Although private schools cannot deny admission to voucher students on the basis of LGBTQ+ identity, school policies apply once a student enrolls. There is no state law prohibiting LGBTQ+ discrimination against enrolled students. And religious entities — which comprise 95% of current voucher schools — are exempted from federal Title IX protections against discrimination if complying with the law “would be inconsistent with the religious tenets of the organization.”

A Wisconsin Watch investigation has found that many voucher schools have policies targeting LGBTQ+ students for disparate treatment. Some warn they may discipline or  expel students for being gay or transgender. Others ban recognition of a transgender student’s chosen name or pronouns, or will deny them access to transition-related medication or facilities that align with their gender identity. 

As policies and procedures vary by school, parents or guardians of LGBTQ+ youth should contact the schools they are interested in directly to ask for a copy of the handbook or discuss their application. Many schools also have their handbooks publicly available on their websites.

If your child has a disability they may not have protection as a voucher student.

Students with disabilities lose a host of rights under federal law when they leave public schools. Private voucher schools are “only required to offer services to assist students with special needs that it can provide with minor adjustments,” according to DPI. This document compares the rights afforded to students with disabilities in public schools versus in the Special Needs Scholarship Program.

Although schools cannot consider a voucher student’s disability during admissions, they may expel students if they determine they cannot readily accommodate their needs. A Wisconsin Watch investigation has found some voucher schools appear to have such policies.

As policies and procedures vary by school, parents or guardians of children with disabilities interested in voucher schools should contact the schools they are interested in to ask for a copy of the handbook or discuss their application. 

In some cases, students with disabilities can qualify for services provided by the local public school district. DPI  recommends that parents contact the public school district in which the private school is located to see what services, if any, it  provides to private school students. 

What to do if you think your child has faced LGBTQ+ or disability discrimination at a voucher school:

If you believe your family has experienced discrimination on the basis of LGBTQ+ or disability status during voucher admissions, you can contact DPI. 

If you believe your family has experienced LGBTQ+ or disability discrimination before or after enrollment, and you would like to challenge it, you can file a federal complaint with the Office for Civil Rights. You may also connect with advocates at groups such as Fair Wisconsin or Disability Rights Wisconsin about your options. Education advocates say you may have more luck in federal court, but a challenge in state court might have the chance to change state law. 

To find more information about voucher schools in Wisconsin:

Wisconsin’s Department of Public Instruction has extensive information on its website. It provides an overview of the programs, which discusses student eligibility. Application guidelines describe how to apply for enrollment in the 2023-24 school year, including the open application periods. Frequently asked questions cover everything from religious activities, transferring and the type of residency documentation required. 

The nonprofit Wisconsin Watch (www.WisconsinWatch.org) collaborates with WPR, PBS Wisconsin, other news media and the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Journalism and Mass Communication. All works created, published, posted or disseminated by Wisconsin Watch do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of UW-Madison or any of its affiliates.

Considering a Wisconsin voucher school? Here’s what parents of children who are LGBTQ+ or have a disability should know. is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit and nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletter to get our investigative stories and Friday news roundup.

Rita Adamson died under the care of a physician she didn’t want to see. 

Rita, 62, lived with cervical cancer for six years. “Until the last day of her life,” her husband Bill wrote, “Rita was active, walked with a cane, prepared food and did shopping.” 

Many doctors treated her illness over the years, but one, Adamson said, stood out for his unprofessional behavior: Dr. Scott Kamelle, a gynecologic oncologist from Milwaukee-based Aurora St. Luke’s Medical Center, Wisconsin’s largest hospital. 

The first time Kamelle interacted with the couple, Rita had been admitted to the hospital. Kamelle was covering for her regular doctor. Kamelle, Adamson said, never showed. 

Instead, Adamson alleged in a letter to Aurora’s chief medical officer, Kamelle took three hours to respond to a phone call and lied in hospital records that he had seen and examined Rita when he had not. Kamelle told the couple that she had just a few months to live, he couldn’t do anything to help her, and Rita went home “without adequate pain control,” Adamson wrote. 

After that, Rita refused to become Kamelle’s full-time patient. But she had no choice whenever she had an emergency and he was on call. That is what happened the weekend she died.

On the last full day of Rita’s life, July 16, 2016, Adamson surprised her with an anniversary party. But at some point that day, Adamson wrote in the letter, they discovered blood clots filling the drainage bulb that remained after a surgery. They followed prior instructions and called her doctor’s office. The staffer who answered told them Kamelle was on call and that he’d call back soon. He never did.

The next morning, Rita was too tired to go to church. Adamson wanted to stay home with her, but said she insisted he attend. He returned to find her lying in the hallway.

Rita had bled to death. 

Adamson did not know why Kamelle did not respond that weekend. “I’m a layman,” he recalled. “What do I know?” But Kamelle would later claim he had not received the page at all because he was in a “dead zone.” 

“Do I blame him for her death?” Adamson asked. “No, not really. But he should have called me back that day.” 

Adamson sought accountability from Aurora and the Wisconsin Department of Safety and Professional Services, which licenses physicians. Wisconsin Watch sought an interview with both Kamelle and Advocate Aurora Health leadership, but a spokeswoman did not make them available.

Rita “could have lived longer if Dr. Kamelle had responded to his page,” Adamson wrote in a letter to the DSPS. “My goal is to make sure what happened to my wife will not happen to anybody in the future.” 

DSPS found no violations of law or rules in Adamson’s complaint. Aurora also did not find Kamelle at fault, although a spokeswoman acknowledged in a statement that the hospital’s “on-call process that day did not work as intended and has been addressed.” 

DSPS also did not issue any discipline in another complaint against Kamelle forwarded by federal authorities from a federal lawsuit. And a review of Kamelle’s practice by Aurora St. Luke’s similarly identified no wrongdoing, the hospital said.

Other complaints emerge

Concerns over Kamelle’s practice have resurfaced in a DSPS complaint filed by the same whistleblowing physician who filed the federal lawsuit. Wisconsin Watch obtained the DSPS complaint through an open records request and convinced a magistrate judge to unseal the lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin. 

The whistleblower withdrew the lawsuit in 2020 after the government declined to join as a plaintiff in the case. While the court unsealed the complaint, it declined to provide records containing “confidential information about the status of the governments’ investigation at that time and the investigatory techniques used by the governments.”

The physician, along with seven other doctors interviewed by Wisconsin Watch, requested anonymity fearing professional retribution for speaking out. Together, the seven physicians recounted personal observations of Kamelle’s alleged practices, corroborating key aspects of the whistleblower’s allegations. 

In addition, one of Kamelle’s practices — routine placement of ureteral stents — is rarely indicated, occurring in less than 3% of major inpatient gynecological surgeries, studies show. 

Emails show the whistleblowing physician also alerted hospital officials to his concerns. Two other physicians told Wisconsin Watch that they, too, sought intervention from hospital leaders.

“The perception at Aurora is Dr. Kamelle is untouchable,” a DSPS investigator wrote in a memo summarizing a statement from one of the physicians who was interviewed in the case. “Management will not address issues that have been brought to their attention involving Dr. Kamelle,” the physician claimed.

Chief among the whistleblower’s’ allegations: that Kamelle routinely implanted powder and mesh devices, placed ureteral stents and involved additional surgeons in all except minor outpatient surgeries without medical necessity, leading to increased charges and potential complications. (Advocate Aurora is currently facing a class action lawsuit related to its high prices.)

The DSPS complaint cites multiple internal reviews conducted by Aurora which allegedly found Kamelle’s robotic surgeries cost twice as much, as well as “significantly higher rates of pelvic infections,” longer hospital stays and higher rates of open surgery compared to two of his peers. Aurora declined to provide those internal reviews to Wisconsin Watch.

When asked for comment, Aurora dismissed the allegations. 

“The claims have been thoroughly investigated through a robust process that included an independent physician analysis,” Dr. Frank LaVora, chief medical officer for Aurora’s Greater Milwaukee patient service area, said in a statement. 

LaVora said the analysis showed Kamelle “consistently met all standards of care and no opportunities for clinical improvement were identified,” but a spokeswoman declined to provide the analysis.

False claims lawsuits filed 

The former Aurora physician filed a federal false claims lawsuit regarding Kamelle’s “unjustified and routine” use of products at Aurora produced by the medical device manufacturer ACell. 

Such legal actions, also known as qui tam lawsuits, enable individual whistleblowers, called “relators,” to bring civil or criminal charges against those who have defrauded the federal government. It is often used to detect and prosecute Medicare and Medicaid fraud cases. 

Three years earlier, a former ACell employee filed his own qui tam action in Maryland against the company, in part alleging it had fraudulently marketed one of its products — a “powder wound-dressing” called MicroMatrix — for internal use, when the Food and Drug Administration had only approved it for use externally.

In 2019, the Maryland lawsuit resulted in a civil settlement from ACell. The company agreed to pay $15 million to settle criminal and civil liability arising from allegations that, in part, ACell “caused false claims to be submitted to federal health care programs” for MicroMatrix, according to a press release from the U.S. Department of Justice. ACell also pleaded guilty to one misdemeanor for failing and refusing to report a recall of its product to the FDA.

The False Claims Act allows the whistleblowing relators to recover a portion of any fraudulently billed amount. The former ACell employee received nearly $2.4 million. 

False claims lawsuit leads to DSPS referral

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General referred the surgeon’s false claims allegations about Kamelle to the state DSPS for investigation, an agency spokesperson confirmed. 

DSPS closed the case, saying the “allegations could not be substantiated.” 

Neither DSPS nor the inspector general’s office would provide Wisconsin Watch with the referred complaint. But emails obtained by Wisconsin Watch provide a glimpse into what DSPS investigated.

The agency audited eight procedures Kamelle handled in 2019 and 2020 — years after the 2010-16 period about which the whistleblower raised concerns. All procedures were “radical dissection for tumor debulking, billed as a primary surgery, with corresponding bowel obstruction,” with the same billing code.

The emails did not mention ACell. But each case substantiated the whistleblower’s key allegations about ureteral stents and additional surgeons. 

A urologist was involved in all eight cases, placing a ureteral stent in seven or eight cases — the documents disagree. In addition, in all eight cases, one or two additional colorectal or general surgeons provided a “surgical assist.”

In response to DSPS closing the case, the whistleblower reiterated his allegations in a separate complaint, which is still pending. Kamelle also filed a complaint against the whistleblower, which the agency dismissed.

Contaminated product used

The federal guilty plea and settlement agreement indicate that ACell’s “senior management directed its sales force to sell MicroMatrix for internal uses” despite not having FDA approval.

And some of the product that ACell inappropriately encouraged physicians to use internally happened to be contaminated. In 2011, the company discovered MicroMatrix had dangerously high levels of toxins called endotoxins. 

Endotoxin exposure can cause fever, infection, septic shock and death. The FDA sets a limit for the acceptable amount of endotoxins — 20 units — in a medical device intended for internal implantation. ACell discovered some contained as many as 272 units.

It found dangerously high contamination in a separate product — PSMX Sheets, which were approved for internal use — as well. ACell notified the FDA and the public that it was issuing a recall.

But according to the plea agreement, ACell “took no action to recall or remove” the contaminated MicroMatrix. 

The company began a silent, selective recall after another round of testing in January 2012 again found dangerously high levels of endotoxins in MicroMatrix. The company’s senior management quietly removed the larger packages of contaminated MicroMatrix because they knew those “were used internally” — again, contrary to FDA guidelines — but it did not notify the FDA, in violation of the law, according to the plea agreement.

Nor did ACell disclose the contamination to doctors, hospitals or their own sales force. Some representatives continued to unwittingly sell the contaminated, larger packages after being instructed to return them to headquarters.

As for the smaller volumes of MicroMatrix, which had contamination carrying the same level of risk, ACell did nothing. It did not remove the smaller packages, nor did it inform doctors or hospitals about the contamination, because, according to the company’s CEO, it had “too much street value.” 

When several medical professionals told ACell their patients had suffered complications, the company again did not disclose the contamination.

Kamelle ‘routinely’ used ACell

The whistleblowing physician alleges in his ongoing DSPS complaint that Kamelle engaged in “routine implanting of unnecessary meshes and biologic powder” which stemmed from an allegedly close relationship with the ACell sales representative.

A second physician, who asked Wisconsin Watch not to be named, told DSPS that he spoke under oath to the U.S. Attorney’s Office about Kamelle’s use of ACell mesh.

According to a summary of that DSPS interview in January 2022, conducted as part of Kamelle’s unsuccessful complaint against the whistleblower, the doctor strongly vouched for the whistleblower, saying he was a “very good doctor” whom he would allow to operate on his wife. 

He felt the opposite about Kamelle, and claimed the ACell representative served as the best man in Kamelle’s wedding, the agency document said.

Two other people who witnessed Kamelle’s surgical practice and asked for anonymity to protect their careers also said they observed a close relationship between Kamelle and the ACell representative, whom one recalled being present in the hospital “all the time.” 

From 2013-16, Kamelle reported receiving $8,135 in non-accredited training and food and beverages from ACell, according to public documents. In comparison to his Aurora peers, one gynecologic oncologist received zero payments from ACell, and two received just $100 and $160 in food and beverages.

ACell’s individual food and beverage payments to Kamelle ranged up to $231 in a single day. An Aurora policy on gifts and business courtesies implemented in 2010 and updated in 2016 states that “Aurora caregivers may accept a modest meal” of no more than $25 for breakfast and lunch and $50 for dinner.

“It always kind of makes you wonder, but it’s really hard to just look at information and know for sure what’s going on,” said Joan Krause, an expert in health law and University of North Carolina law professor. “Do we know for sure that this is a fancy dinner to reward people? Or is this actually a working lunch, where they’re really doing something? You can’t really tell that from the data.”

Use of mesh questioned

The whistleblower alleges Kamelle occasionally justified using the mesh to prevent vaginal cuff dehiscence, when the top of the vagina breaks down. A second physician — who did not want to be named for fear of retaliation — corroborated this account.

Although mesh has been used to treat severe forms of this condition, it is rare — occurring in far less than 1% of hysterectomies, studies show. 

Possible endotoxin contamination is less of a concern here, because ACell recalled its contaminated PSMX mesh sheets in 2011. But the DSPS complaint alleges that an internal review of complications from gynecology surgeries from 2013 to 2015 found that Kamelle had “significantly higher rates of pelvic infections, longer hospital stay and higher rates of open surgery” compared to two other Aurora gynecologic oncologists. 

The complaint alleges the findings prompted providers to initiate a review of Kamelle’s surgical practice, which was later “discontinued by Aurora administration.”

Four additional people who observed Kamelle’s surgeries between 2011 and 2016 confirmed to Wisconsin Watch that they witnessed Kamelle frequently use ACell material. All asked for anonymity to protect their careers. Two of these witnesses specifically remembered Kamelle using the powdered MicroMatrix, which was not approved for internal use. 

The complainant says he believes Kamelle routinely used the mesh and MicroMatrix powder without informing his patients or obtaining their consent. He alleges that he viewed surgical consent forms and spoke with patients in surgeries he took over from Kamelle, and that he spoke with an ACell representative and other staff. 

He told DSPS he feared there could be many women who unknowingly have biological powder or mesh devices in their bodies, writing: “I genuinely believe this is a significant safety issue and requires immediate attention.”

Aurora did not answer questions about whether it had investigated Kamelle’s use of ACell material, especially in light of the 2019 federal findings that the company had quietly and incompletely recalled dangerous, contaminated products. But a spokeswoman said by email that the hospital chain did not begin using ACell products until mid-2012, after the product recall.

Were stents necessary? 

The complainant further alleges that Kamelle placed ureteral stents in nearly all major surgeries, which can lead to complications and which he claimed was medically unnecessary.

Stents hold open the ureters, tubes which carry urine from the kidneys to the bladder. Stent placement can cause blood or clots in the urine, as well as infection that could cause kidney failure. Along with potential complications, unnecessary stenting also adds time and cost.

Four separate medical professionals say they personally witnessed urology providers placing stents on most of Kamelle’s patients. Two other medical professionals said it was “common knowledge” that he had urology place stents in every case. When DSPS audited eight of Kamelle’s cases from 2019 and 2020, they found he had urologists place stents in at least seven. 

A 2011 study of one health system found providers placed ureteral stents in just 2.3% of major inpatient gynecological surgeries. It recommended against the practice because the procedure did not effectively prevent ureteral injury and added significant cost. 

A 2016 clinical expert series article in the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists’ journal also advised that preoperative ureteral stenting does not reduce ureteral injury and “is not cost-effective at common levels of injury.” 

“I am not aware of any other gynecologic oncologist who routinely places ureteral stents,” the whistleblower told DSPS.

He said he kept records of Kamelle’s adverse surgical outcomes for a “few months” in 2015 to share with Aurora leadership. He said he documented 10 cases of renal failure, some requiring temporary dialysis “as a result of the routine, indiscriminate and unnecessary placement of ureteral stents ordered by Dr. Kamelle.” 

He further said he documented 28 of Kamelle’s patients who underwent unnecessary procedures alongside their necessary surgeries that he alleges resulted in complications, including “a few deaths shortly after futile surgeries.” 

Costly additional surgeons involved

According to the whistleblower, Kamelle — without medical necessity — also enlisted the help of other surgeons in nearly all of his major surgeries. 

“Gynecologic oncologists are highly trained surgeons and are expected to perform complex pelvic surgeries,” he told DSPS, calling the routine assistance of others a “red flag.”

The four people with direct knowledge of Kamelle’s surgical practice from 2011-2016 confirmed they witnessed Kamelle routinely involve urologists and general or colorectal surgeons. 

Some couched their comments by noting that because they are not gynecologic oncologists, it’s difficult for them to evaluate what’s appropriate. But all said Kamelle’s use of co-surgeons far exceeds any other gynecologic oncologists they’ve encountered.

In the whistleblower’s DSPS complaint, he attributed Kamelle’s “routine involvement” of other surgeons to a “lack of confidence and competence.” He said adding surgeons “increases revenue for the health care system” while also raising the possibility of complications.

One of the four familiar with Kamelle’s practices said a colorectal surgeon “regularly” placed trocars, instruments used in laparoscopic surgery — something he said even medical residents did without assistance. 

The practice appears to have continued, as the DSPS audit of eight cases in 2019 and 2020 found that Kamelle enlisted support from general or colorectal surgeons in every one.

Patient ‘dumping’ alleged

The physician alleges in his DSPS complaint that Kamelle “seriously jeopardized patient safety” as he “repeatedly dumped” some “difficult” patients on his colleagues. He summarized the experience of nine patients, some of whom he claims Kamelle transferred to his practice without “prior coordination” or abandoned in the operating room without notice.

“Dr. Kamelle simply failed to show up for a very serious and life-threatening surgery on a young mother,” the complaint alleges. The woman had a high-risk pregnancy complication called placenta accreta and needed a cesarean hysterectomy, a “technically challenging” surgery involving C-section birth followed by immediate removal of the uterus.

“All of a sudden, on the day of surgery, Dr. Kamelle stated that he was out of town,” even though he was scheduled to work, the physician alleged. The whistleblower had to “rush” to the hospital to “perform a complex cesarean hysterectomy.” 

He claims a clinical leader acknowledged his “responsiveness,” and said it would be “called to the attention of leadership.”

The examples cited by the whistleblower echo what Bill Adamson said he and his late wife experienced. In a letter to DSPS, he wrote, “Rita and I had three interactions with Dr. Kamelle and every single time, he either failed to respond or responded with significant delay.”

The nonprofit Wisconsin Watch (www.WisconsinWatch.org) collaborates with WPR, PBS Wisconsin, other news media and the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Journalism and Mass Communication. All works created, published, posted or disseminated by Wisconsin Watch do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of UW-Madison or any of its affiliates.

Whistleblower claims Milwaukee doctor performed unneeded surgeries is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit and nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletter to get our investigative stories and Friday news roundup.

A Virginia-based group is spreading false information about transgender youth, school officials and Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Janet Protasiewicz to encourage voters to support her challenger Daniel Kelly in Tuesday’s Wisconsin Supreme Court election. 

As of March 17, American Principles Project PAC, which belongs to a think tank by the same name, had poured about $796,000 into digital advertisements and peer-to-peer messaging supporting Kelly, the conservative former justice. 

The videos, distributed by text message to Wisconsin voters, contain transphobia and disinformation, including broad claims that Protasiewicz and school officials are working to make children transgender.

The videos also claim school officials keep secret from parents their children’s gender identity or administer transition-related care without parental permission. The ads target two school districts: Eau Claire and Kettle Moraine.

Eau Claire Area School District Superintendent Mike Johnson said his district’s policy is “if a student asks an ECASD staff member not to disclose to a parent/caregiver their preferred name and/or pronouns, we honor that request, but considerable counseling and support is provided to help the student and family/caregiver come together, not drift apart.”

“If a parent would ask a specific question regarding their child,” he added, “ECASD staff will always tell the truth and provide support for both the student and the family.”

The superintendent also said the Eau Claire district “doesn’t participate in any form of medical transition care … only a parent makes those decisions.”

Kettle Moraine School District Superintendent Stephen Plum, whose schools are also targeted in the ads, said previously the district has no written policies on gender identity; legal filings state it has no unwritten policy, either. 

Trans rights not a top concern in race

Highly anticipated cases have made the Supreme Court race the most expensive in the nation’s history. The top issues include abortion and redistricting — not transgender rights. 

But American Principles Project (APP) is part of a national, far-right movement to demonize transgender people and undermine their rights in realms including education and health care. It is funded by deep-pocketed donors including GOP megadonor Richard Uihlein. In January, APP’s president confirmed to The New York Times that it aims to eliminate transition care for transgender people of any age, calling the current anti-trans campaign “a political winner.” 

APP PAC has waged an advertising war against trans people in state and federal elections across the country for at least two years. 

Out of 31 ads on its YouTube page, 24 discuss LGBTQ+ people, often targeting transgender youth through the frame of parental rights. The ads — which don’t include the two in Wisconsin — challenged presidential candidate Joe Biden and candidates in 10 states. Many of the targeted candidates won their races.

An APP spokesperson did not respond to emails requesting comment or providing specific questions about their Wisconsin efforts. The Kelly campaign also did not respond to questions.

Eau Claire School Board President Tim Nordin said he recognizes APP’s strategy as an “ongoing tactic across the nation” at the expense of transgender youth. 

Nordin described it as “trying to make people afraid or angry — or frankly, confuse them or believe things that are false — in order to get them to go out and vote.” 

At less than 1% of the U.S. population, transgender people comprise a tiny minority that faces significant marginalization.

Nordin added that “amplifying and hyperbolizing these sorts of messages creates danger” for trans people and their supporters. Nordin and his family have received a death threat over his support of the district’s gender identity policies. A California man was arrested and charged with making a terroristic threat, but the case was dismissed after the defendant was convicted of similar charges in federal court.

Texts target Wisconsin voters with conspiratorial claims

On March 23, Wausau’s progressive Mayor Katie Rosenberg received what she described as a “disgusting” text from an unknown number. 

It claimed that Protasiewicz, the liberal candidate for the Supreme Court, is “endorsed by all the woke activists that are stripping parents of their rights in Wisconsin schools and forcing transgenderism down our throats.” 

The text didn’t identify the sender, but the video accompanying it was paid for by American Principles Project PAC. 

“I think that anybody using kids as a political cudgel, it’s highly inappropriate, but especially some of our most vulnerable kids,” Rosenberg said. “Our trans kids deserve our support, not to be used as a political tool.” 

People in Milwaukee, Waukesha and Dane counties have reported receiving similar texts since mid-March.

The text messages are lurid. They decry the “woke left’s unending thirst to trans our children.” They are conspiratorial, claiming “Protasiewicz and her woke allies want to TRANS our children without notifying parents.” And they are false. 

“These claims aren’t based in reality and don’t reflect positions Judge Protasiewicz has taken in this campaign,” campaign spokesperson Sam Roecker said by email. 

Transgender people pushed back on the fallacy of indoctrination.

“Nobody’s out here trying to make children what they’re not,” said Vica-Etta Steel, a former elementary school teacher and current faith leader who spoke at a transgender rights rally at the Capitol on March 18. “If you’re cisgender, if you were born in the same sex and gender, if you all agree that you match, that’s fine. You are who you are.” 

Steel and the transgender activists at the march said they wanted to live in a world where it’s safe to live as the gender that fits them. Steel, a transgender woman, didn’t have that opportunity as a child, saying: “By kindergarten, I understood I had to hide who I was from this world.”

Board president: Depiction of Eau Claire schools ‘patently false’ 

One of APP PAC’s ads focuses on the Eau Claire school district. The first frame shows a headline about a lawsuit a group of parents filed against the district, challenging its approach to transgender students on the basis of “parental rights.” 

In September 2022, anonymous parents represented by the conservative Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty and Stephen Miller’s America First Legal, sued the district over its administrative guidance for supporting transgender and gender non-conforming students.

A judge dismissed the suit this month for lack of standing and evidence. The parents are appealing.

While the Eau Claire lawsuit is in federal court, WILL has filed two other cases in state courts against Kettle Moraine and Madison public schools that might one day land on the Supreme Court’s docket. These suits also challenge those districts’ choices to honor transgender students’ chosen names and pronouns. The former has not yet been decided, and the latter is being appealed after a Dane County judge dismissed it for reasons similar to the Eau Claire case. 

The existence of the Eau Claire lawsuit is among the few verifiable facts in APP’s ad. Another frame bears the text: “School policy states: ‘Parents are not entitled to know their kids’ identities.’ ” 

“That’s patently false,” said Nordin, the school board president, noting the line comes from notes on a presenter’s slide during a professional development session on creating safe spaces — not district or school policy.

In Eau Claire, parents can obtain their child’s gender support plan upon request, regardless of a student’s wishes, and changes to a student’s official name in the school portal require parental permission. 

The district does encourage staff to first speak with a student before disclosing their gender identity to parents due to potential safety or other concerns. 

But Nordin said in practice, when a student tells school personnel they are trans or gender nonconforming, “the first thing that our staff always do is ask, ‘How can we help be that bridge? How can we help you get there with your parents?’ ” He also estimated that 99% of students with a “gender support plan” were already out with their parents.

Medical information misleading

The video ads also conflate social and medicalized transition. 

In the ad featuring Eau Claire, the narrator warns that “radical activists want kids to start transgender therapies without parental consent” as similar text flashes over a video of a health care worker giving a child a shot. 

In a second video ad about Kettle Moraine, the narrator falsely claims “an innocent 12-year-old girl was transitioned into a boy by school officials without parental consent.” Later, the ad shows graphic, grainy images of a torso with chest bandages and arms with skin graft sites, presumably for transition-related surgeries, as the narrator yells: “This is insanity.” 

Doctors do not prescribe puberty blockers, often a first step in transition-related medical care, until trans children show signs of puberty, and guidelines typically reserve surgeries for adults aged 18 or older, according to AP.

But the juxtaposition of text and image in both ads implies that schools provide or authorize medical therapies without parental notice.

“It’s just flat misinformation” said Josie Caballero, director of the U.S. Trans Survey and Special Projects at the National Center for Transgender Equality Action Fund, which advocates for transgender equality. 

She said the ads falsely equate social transition, which can include changing a person’s name or pronouns, with medical procedures. 

The Kettle Moraine child referenced in the ad — whose parents are suing the school district with WILL — only wanted to use a different name and pronouns. According to WILL’s own filings, the parents removed the child from school before the district could act on the student’s request. 

‘Parental rights’ claims

As the advertisement featuring Eau Claire continues, a narrator warns that “extreme groups endorsing Janet Protasiewicz want to take away parental rights and impose trans ideology.” Protasiewicz’s endorsements show only one group dedicated to LGBTQ+ issues: the PAC of the Human Rights Campaign.

Said Nordin: “These attacks are framed as something other than what they are, which is trying to make children the ‘other’ and the ‘enemy’ to make people afraid, to try to drive people to the ballot to gain power for these right-wing hate messages.” 

Every video ad and text message reviewed by Wisconsin Watch discussed parental rights in some way. APP’s video featuring Kettle Moraine claimed: “the balance of Wisconsin’s Supreme Court will determine if parents still have rights.” 

Caballero said her group is “trying to give rights and freedoms to trans Americans and family members that are supportive.” 

“The opposition is not fighting for parental rights,” she said. “They’re actually actively taking them away.” 

Eleven states have banned at least some form of best-practice medical care for transgender youth, according to the think tank Movement Advancement Project, and many others are debating similar moves. The medications and surgeries these laws restrict are endorsed by every major medical association, but in those states, children, and their parents, no longer have the right to access it.

Caballero considers the term “trans ideology,” also in the ads and texts, a “dog whistle” for the false belief that transgender people “aren’t innately trans,” but instead “have to be turned trans.” 

Graeme Reid, director of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Rights Program at Human Rights Watch, describes “gender ideology” as a linguistic tool that seeks to undermine LGBTQ+ equality “by playing on people’s fear of social change and claiming a global conspiracy of great influence and scale.” 

Nordin also rejects the claim. “Our district is not pushing any ideology. If there’s one thing that we’re pushing, it’s ‘Respect people for who they are.’ ” 

APP: Part of national anti-trans movement

Caballero said that despite the significant funds behind the anti-trans movement to which APP belongs, the position remains fringe, designed to appeal “to the most extreme.”

“These policies,” she said, “don’t resonate with the general public.” 

That’s something Nordin saw firsthand in Eau Claire. He said the people who said “awful things” about trans youth are “simply a loud, very small minority.” The message they got back: “What our community is here for is supporting kids and bringing families together, but in a way that respects the essential humanity of individuals, including children.” 

The nonprofit Wisconsin Watch (www.WisconsinWatch.org) collaborates with WPR, PBS Wisconsin, other news media and the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Journalism and Mass Communication. All works created, published, posted or disseminated by Wisconsin Watch do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of UW-Madison or any of its affiliates.

Anti-trans ads favoring Wisconsin Supreme Court candidate Daniel Kelly peddle fear, false info is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit and nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletter to get our investigative stories and Friday news roundup.

As the April 4 election nears, liberal Janet Protasiewicz’s campaign has raised nearly $12 million more than conservative Daniel Kelly’s, according to the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign.

But as of Monday, Kelly’s allies led in ad spending, with outside groups spending about $2 million more to support him or oppose her. 

The consequential election will determine whether Wisconsin’s high court preserves its 4-3 conservative majority or flips to liberal control. In February, the contest became the most expensive court race in U.S. history. The Democracy Campaign estimates today it stands at $39.7 million.

A data analysis by Wisconsin Watch of political ads in the first half of the general election race found ads favoring Protasiewicz dominated television and social media, outnumbering those favoring Kelly 23-to-1. 

Reviewing 440 ads from Feb. 22 to March 14 tracked by WisPolitics’ Ad Watch — which ran on television, radio and digital — and Facebook and Instagram ads from Meta’s ad library, Wisconsin Watch found that 91% of the ads boosted Protasiewicz. 

While it’s difficult to gauge the impact of television ads without insight into how often they’re airing, which is not publicly available, Wisconsin Watch’s analysis illuminates each camp’s priorities. 

“There seems to be an intense interest on the ideological left, especially among various pro-choice groups, to focus on this race,” said Michael Wagner, who studies elections and media at University of Wisconsin-Madison. 

Ads supporting Protasiewicz have emphasized the candidate’s stance on specific issues, including abortion and redistricting, which could come before the court. 

“These are issues that benefit liberals, for sure, but also have a broader coalition of support” among Republicans, Wagner said. Polling shows a majority of Republicans favor redistricting reform, and about a third opposed the Supreme Court decision overturning abortion rights.

The ads supporting Kelly or knocking Protasiewicz largely featured descriptions of his values, such as “constitutional conservatism,” or portray Protasiewicz as “soft on crime.” That’s the message of two television ads issued by the Kelly campaign and the conservative WMC Issues Mobilization Council that came out in the days after Wisconsin Watch’s analysis.

And a new ad circulated by Kelly’s campaign is drawing comparisons to the notorious “Willie Horton” ad from 1988 that helped boost George H.W. Bush over Michael Dukakis for the presidency.

In addition to the candidates’ campaigns and parties, at least 23 electioneering groups purchased Meta, television, radio or digital ads in the first three weeks of the general race. 

These include political action committees (PACs), such as the Koch brothers’ conservative Americans for Prosperity, and advocacy organizations including the left-leaning American Civil Liberties Union. 

Not all have registered with the Wisconsin Elections Commission or filed reports on their expenditures, owing to an exemption in state law that allows out-of-state PACs to avoid reporting their activity in Wisconsin if it makes up less than 50% of their overall spending in a year. 

So-called “issue ad” groups such as WMC Issues Mobilization Council — that do not expressly advocate for the election or defeat of a candidate — also are not required to register or report their spending to the state.

44% of ads examined discuss abortion rights

The Wisconsin Supreme Court has the potential to restore abortion rights if it hears a challenge to the state’s 1849 near-total abortion ban — a fact that nearly half the ads supporting Protasiewicz emphasized. Mentions of abortion surpassed the second-most popular topic by about 4-to-1. 

In an unusual move, Protasiewicz has made her pro-abortion rights position explicit. Two television ads from her campaign announce: “She believes women should have the freedom to make their own decisions on abortion.” 

The majority of Wisconsinites believe abortion should be legal in all or most cases.

“Ten, 20, 30 years ago, we would not have seen this kind of thing as much,” Wagner said. Judicial campaign ads “would have been much more about judicial philosophy, performance on the bench.”

Protasiewicz believes “people deserve to know” if a candidate “believes women should have the freedom to make decisions over their health care” or “that we should protect our democracy,” said campaign spokesperson Sam Roecker. 

Liberal groups outside of Wisconsin have plastered Facebook and Instagram with ads about abortion rights. Tech for Campaigns, which deploys volunteers to support progressive candidates, paid for 148 Meta ads. Indivisible Action, a PAC supporting progressive candidates, discussed abortion in 47 of its 51 Meta ads released in the three weeks before March 14. 

Kelly and his supporters, meanwhile, hardly touch the topic. Just two identical digital ads tout his endorsements from Wisconsin’s three anti-abortion advocacy groups. 

His campaign shot back at a Protasiewicz ad claiming the former justice supports the state’s controversial 19th-century law, saying on his website that he “does not discuss his views on abortion” and would “set aside whatever his personal opinions might be.” 

But he did discuss his anti-abortion views on his personal blog in 2012, saying groups supporting abortion rights promote “sexual libertinism.” And one of the groups endorsing Kelly states: “We proudly endorse these candidates who recognize the personhood of the preborn baby and hold the principled and compassionate no-exceptions pro-life position” — meaning no exceptions for rape, incest or medical emergency.

In recent days, Kelly has appeared at an event featuring an anti-abortion rights pastor who has described killing physicians who provide abortions as “justifiable homicide,” the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports.

Kelly’s campaign did not respond to questions about the themes of ads supporting his candidacy.

Redistricting, democracy looms large

Progressives also consider a host of pro-democracy issues at stake, which collectively accounted for about one-third of ads boosting Protasiewicz or attacking Kelly. In December 2020, the conservative-dominated state Supreme Court rejected former President Donald Trump’s attempt to overturn the election results by just one vote, with conservative justice Brian Hagedorn voting with the liberals.

Between Feb. 22 and March 14, pro-democracy themes featured in 12% of ads reviewed, the second highest after abortion. All of these ads came from Protasiewicz or her supporters, primarily Indivisible Action, the Democratic Party of Wisconsin and the Women’s March, in order of number of ads.

Women’s March — weighing in on Wisconsin politics for the first time — pronounced: “This election could determine the Court’s balance of power and democracy in Wisconsin (and America) for years to come in terms of abortion rights, voting rights and unfair gerrymandering.”

Wisconsin has one of the most extreme partisan gerrymanders in the country. Redistricting appeared in 10% of political ads and voting rights appeared in 8%. 

Those supporting Protasiewicz tie Kelly to Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election results. “In Wisconsin, extremist Dan Kelly was the right-wing lawyer behind the scenes of it all,” a television ad from the Protasiewicz campaign claims. 

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported that Kelly received nearly $120,000 in payments from the state GOP and Republican National Committee to advise on election issues, including the failed fake elector scheme that attempted to subvert the will of Wisconsin voters. Kelly and GOP attorney Joe Olson had “pretty extensive conversations” with former state Republican Party Chairman Andrew Hitt about the plan, Hitt said in a congressional deposition. 

When Protasiewicz raised this at the March 21 debate, Kelly accused her of “lying,” saying that Hitt testified to having extensive conversation with “attorneys plural.” 

“His testimony was also that he had one conversation with me, 30 minutes, in which he asked me if I was ‘in the loop’ on the alternative electors slate. I told him I wasn’t because I wasn’t and that was the end of the matter,” Kelly said. 

But Kelly’s campaign did not dispute the Journal Sentinel’s reporting, responding, “Justice Kelly believes Joe Biden is the duly elected president of the United States.”

The same Protasiewicz ad highlights Kelly’s participation in an “election integrity” tour last summer. The ad claims the tour “promoted the Big Lie” that the election was stolen at events closed to the press. 

At the March 21 debate, Kelly countered that, too: “My client at the time asked me to address various groups around the state about how our election system works, and I was happy to do that.” 

Kelly ads hit Protasiewicz sentencing 

None of the ads from Kelly and his supporters up to March 14 — nor the two television ads launched after Wisconsin Watch’s analysis — discussed democracy, redistricting or voting rights. “I don’t talk about my politics,” he said at the March 21 debate. “I understand what the court is supposed to do, and that’s resolving legal questions.” 

Ads supporting Kelly contain traditional themes of judicial campaigns. Kelly is the “PROVEN CONSTITUTIONAL CONSERVATIVE” Wisconsin needs, say four digital ads from Kelly’s official campaign. 

Most ads attacking Protasiewicz criticize specific sentences to portray her as soft on crime. That’s the message of all four television attack ads against Protasiewicz that Wisconsin Watch reviewed. They were paid for by Kelly’s campaign, GOP megadonor Richard Uihlein’s Fair Courts America PAC and the conservative WMC Issues Mobilization Council. 

The cases they criticize include that of a man who pleaded guilty to third-degree sexual assault and child enticement, both felonies. Although the man faced up to 35 years in prison, Protasiewicz gave him four years of probation and credited him for over one-year in jail, reports the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. 

One striking video ad from Kelly’s campaign has an unmistakable resemblance to the infamously racist “Willie Horton” ad from George H.W. Bush’s 1988 campaign. The ad, posted to Twitter, was not in Wisconsin Watch’s dataset. Save for a mugshot of the defendant, the ad is “basically a shot-for-shot remake,” replete with the blue background, white text and retro voice-over, Wagner said. 

Ben Voelkel, a Kelly adviser, said by email: “The people of Wisconsin need to know the truth about Janet Protasiewicz’s soft-on-crime record and unreliable lack of judgment.” Kelly’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment about the ad. 

Said Wagner: “To me, it’s a sign, actually, of just how partisan and ugly these races have become.” 

At the March 21 debate, Protasiewicz called the ads attacking her sentencing “unfair,” describing them as a “handful of cases (that) have been cherry picked and selected and twisted.”

In the three weeks leading up to March 14, invocations of the Constitution appear most often in ads boosting Kelly, mentioned 29% of the time, followed by crime and safety at 24%. In 20% of the ads, Kelly is characterized as fair and impartial, including in two digital ads from the Kochs’ Americans for Prosperity.

Protasiewicz ads claim Kelly is ‘corrupt’

Protasiewicz’s camp has attacked that image of impartiality in two television ads, which Kelly called “slanderous” at a Milwaukee Press Club event. One criticized Kelly’s role in ruling in favor of the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty six times while receiving donations from WILL board members. Kelly’s campaign said he “didn’t start fundraising” until afterwards, “so any campaign donations couldn’t have possibly influenced decisions in those cases”. 

But a Wisconsin Watch review of the cases and Kelly campaign finance reports contradict that claim. WILL board member Michael W. Grebe donated $1,000 to Kelly on June 17, 2019, eight days before the Supreme Court ruled in favor of one of WILL’s clients. Kelly’s campaign ignored a question about this.

Yet, as WILL points out, all of that is legal. Wisconsin’s Supreme Court has lax recusal rules that do not require justices to remove themselves from cases involving campaign contributors. The rules were written by the Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce and the Wisconsin Realtors Association.

At the March 21 debate, Protasiewicz reiterated she would recuse herself from cases in which the Democratic Party, which has contributed to her campaign, is a party. Kelly did not say he would recuse himself from cases involving his contributors, saying that the court’s job “insulates it from the effects of anyone’s outside interest.”

The nonprofit Wisconsin Watch (www.WisconsinWatch.org) collaborates with WPR, PBS Wisconsin, other news media and the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Journalism and Mass Communication. All works created, published, posted or disseminated by Wisconsin Watch do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of UW-Madison or any of its affiliates.

In Wisconsin Supreme Court race, ad spending for Kelly ekes past Protasiewicz after she led in ads 23-to-1 is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit and nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletter to get our investigative stories and Friday news roundup.

SHEBOYGAN — Key city officials say they were left in the dark at various points during and after three 2021 internal investigations into sexual harassment by the Sheboygan Police Department.

The Sheboygan Press and Wisconsin Watch first reported on the existence and results of the sexual harassment investigations, which included discipline or verbal reprimands for a dozen officers on Feb. 6. The city also settled a discrimination complaint related to sexual harassment with a female officer for $110,000.

The police oversight board, a five-citizen commission that can decide to hear and act on complaints publicly, was out of the loop, former president Robert Lettre told the news outlets. The city also discontinued an external review of the police investigations that city leaders had initially agreed upon. 

The state Department of Workforce Development (DWD) later found probable cause to believe recently fired city administrator Todd Wolf retaliated against former Human Resources Director Vicky Schneider over her concerns about how the investigations were handled. The finding advances the case to either a settlement agreement or an evidentiary hearing presided over by an administrative law judge. 

Over the past few months, city leaders have been updating policies they hope will prevent future harassment and better respond to any future complaints as the fallout from those probes continues. 

Bryan Pray, the officer who received the steepest penalty, a two-week unpaid suspension, resigned Feb. 8 — two days after the story was published and over a year after the conclusion of the internal probes. The investigations focused on misconduct including sharing semi-nude photos of co-workers without their knowledge or consent.

Addressing police culture top priority

Sheboygan’s new human resources director, Adam Westbrook, said the path forward includes improving the culture at the police department, in which “dark humor” and “inappropriate”  statements and behavior were tolerated — a situation he noted is not unique to Sheboygan.

“There was a culture at the police department that allowed for that type of behavior to happen,” Westbrook said. “There has to be a shift that says ‘This is not OK.’ ”

“The second thing is rebuilding trust, and that’s what I’m trying to do. Because I feel like employees and police officers, whether rightfully or wrongfully, feel like if they report something, nothing is going to happen… (I) have been very clear that I want to know bad things that are happening so that I can address them.”

Moving forward, any allegation of harassment, discrimination or retaliation will be investigated separately by the human resources department and the police department, Westbrook said.

On Feb. 14, a citizen complaint was filed with the police department against Chief Christopher Domagalski, Capt. Kurt Zempel, recently promoted to assistant chief, and Capt. James Veeser for their handling of the original sexual harassment investigations, citing Wisconsin Watch and the Sheboygan Press’s reporting. 

Two days later, Westbrook responded in writing that the complaint could not be investigated “based on the lack of information provided,” but the complainant could submit a new complaint to human resources with more detail or appeal to the Police and Fire Commission.

Investigation of a more recent complaint related to sexual harassment at the police department closed in February after investigators found it was not true and did not happen, Westbrook said.

City launched external review, which never finished 

One step the city did take was to hire a law firm in July 2021 to investigate the police department’s handling of the allegations after Schneider raised concerns. But the review was discontinued when a female officer filed a sex discrimination complaint with the DWD.

That was news to Mayor Ryan Sorenson, who said he did not know the attorneys’ investigation was halted.

“I was trusting our team that this was being handled correctly and obviously best practices weren’t followed, so I was very upset by that,” he said. “I guess I fully don’t understand why it (the outside review) stopped.” 

The mayor said he is not normally involved in personnel issues; after making the decision to hire outside attorneys, responsibility for the review passed to the human resources department, city administrator and city attorney’s office.

City administrator alleged to have downplayed concerns

Schneider, the former city human resources director, filed a complaint with the state Equal Rights Division in January 2022 against the city claiming discrimination. Schneider’s case, which is pending, alleged then-city administrator Wolf downplayed her concerns about the police department’s response to sexual harassment complaints.

Wolf instead “sought to discredit the female officers involved” and told Schneider not to get involved in the investigation or to inform the city council about the sexual harassment complaints, her attorney wrote in filings to the state DWD. James Macy, the attorney hired by the city to defend it against Schneider’s employment discrimination complaint, declined to comment further on the pending case but said no discrimination occurred.

Schneider took leave from November 2021 until March 2022, when the benefit ran out, resigning in early June. 

In early January, the council fired Wolf, citing no reasons, after hearing additional, unrelated concerns about his conduct. The city has declined to release its preliminary investigation report but Sorenson told the Sheboygan Press that Wolf’s actions as city administrator made the city vulnerable to lawsuits. 

The city chose to fire Wolf without cause, rather than for cause, to save money and “minimize the negative impact on both Wolf and other city employees,” according to the city council resolution.

On Feb. 6, Wolf sued 13 people, including the mayor, city council members and Sheboygan Press reporter Maya Hilty, in connection with his firing, which he contends was unjustified. 

Police and Fire Commission not involved

In 2021, Lettre, then-president of the Sheboygan Board of Police and Fire Commissioners, also raised concerns about the sexual harassment investigations.

The commission holds trial-like hearings on complaints filed against police officers, if concerns remain after those complaints are dealt with internally. Complaints can be filed with the commission by a member of the commission, the police chief or any aggrieved person.

The commission decides appropriate discipline for officers, including the chief of police, if the charges are sustained.

Lettre said a female officer contacted him in 2021 saying she had made a sexual harassment complaint that was inadequately addressed by the department. Lettre then met with the police chief, the mayor, city administrator and city attorney.

“It seemed like they were more interested in hiding the fact that there had been what was going on in the police department with sexual harassment … than really addressing the problem,” he said.

Lettre said he “never had a chance to pursue” the officer’s concerns because in the spring of 2022, he was removed from the commission.

According to Lettre, Sorenson told him in April that the police chief thought Lettre should not be reappointed at the end of his five-year term. 

“I kind of laughed at him. I said, ‘What’s the police chief got to do with you reappointing?’ ” Lettre later told a reporter, saying that “goes against” the intent of the state law establishing police and fire commissions to oversee police chiefs and departments.

Sorenson said the chief did not influence his decision but both the police and fire chiefs “gave some good perspective that kind of confirmed my decision.” Sorenson said he did not reappoint Lettre because he campaigned on making new appointments to city boards, and Lettre had already served 25 years on the commission.

While president of the commission, Lettre said he was not aware of the city’s external review of the police department’s investigation, although he “certainly” thinks the city should have informed him of that. He added that the commission knew “almost nothing” about the sexual harassment complaints at the department.

Andy Hopp, the current president, declined to discuss the department’s harassment investigations or the city’s external review, adding he cannot comment on matters discussed in closed session.

Hopp also declined to comment on whether the female officer’s allegations about supervisors and the chief of police failing to take her complaints seriously warrant further investigation.

Police misconduct remained out of public view

The police department redacted more than 70 pages of the reports obtained by the Sheboygan Press and Wisconsin Watch, along with the names of all but two of the 12 officers who were disciplined or verbally admonished.

Domagalski wrote that full disclosure would discourage officers from cooperating in future investigations and undermine the privacy of those who participated. He also wrote it would hinder the city’s ability to recruit and retain officers by causing a loss of morale and limiting their opportunities for “satisfying careers and fair treatment.” 

Chuck Adams, the city attorney, initially said the city would not release the settlement agreement with the female officer but later provided it.

Employment attorney Nola Cross, who was not involved in the investigations or complaints, said efforts by a city to hide what happens with public money is a violation of public trust.

Additionally, anyone contemplating applying to the Sheboygan Police Department should “easily” be able to know the department’s record on sexual harassment, such how many settlements there have been and how many complaints have been filed, Cross said.

“That’s one of the reasons there’s so much pervasive sexual harassment … in non-traditional female positions,” she said. “It doesn’t see the light of day. There’s no sunlight on these cases.”

This is a collaboration by the Sheboygan Press and the nonprofit Wisconsin Watch, (www.WisconsinWatch.org), which collaborates with WPR, PBS Wisconsin, other news media and the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Journalism and Mass Communication. All works created, published, posted or disseminated by Wisconsin Watch do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of UW-Madison or any of its affiliates.

Top Sheboygan officials lacked key details on police department sexual harassment probes is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

This story was produced as part of the NEW (Northeast Wisconsin) News Lab, a consortium of six news outlets covering northeastern Wisconsin.

Wisconsin Watch is a member of the network. Subscribe to our newsletter to get our investigative stories and Friday news roundup.

Clarification: Male officers found to have sexually harassed colleagues in 2021 did attend anti-harassment training; the entire police department was required to attend sexual harassment training, according to Director of Human Resources Adam Westbrook. Wisconsin Watch and the Sheboygan Press previously reported what officers attended anti-harassment training based on discipline forms, on which the officers found to have sexually harassed their colleagues were not ordered to attend anti-harassment training but other officers were.

In the spring and summer of 2021, the results of three, months-long internal investigations came to Sheboygan Police Chief Christopher Domagalski’s desk.

Supervisors found that, amidst a raft of sexual misconduct by both men and women in the department, four male officers had sexually harassed female colleagues. Three of those male officers also committed other serious policy violations, including not following supervisors’ orders and neglecting their duties. 

One victim of harassment had resigned as a result. Another said the harassment — which included male colleagues passing around a partially nude photo of her without her knowledge or consent — was straining her relationships with other officers, and she worried about remaining at the department.

Domagalski reduced the discipline recommended by his captain, giving the worst offenders one- and two-week suspensions.

In total, 12 officers out of the 62-officer patrol force — or about one in five — were disciplined or verbally admonished in 2021 as a result of the internal investigations. At least three female officers resigned as a result of or mentioning frustrations about the department.

In late 2022, Wisconsin Watch and the Sheboygan Press obtained the three internal investigations, comprising over 200 pages of heavily redacted reports. 

The records name just two of the officers, Bryan Pray and Nicholas Helland, who were disciplined for sexual harassment. Police sought to shield the name of the officer central to the third sexual harassment investigation, but a redaction error identifies him as Stephen Schnabel. We chose to name him because he was also disciplined for sexual harassment. 

The news outlets could not definitively confirm the identities of some of the officers disciplined for lesser policy violations. We are also not naming the victims of sexual harassment, some of whom were also disciplined for policy violations, including misuse of their cellphones and inappropriate or unbecoming conduct. 

Wisconsin Watch and the Sheboygan Press’s review of the reports found the Sheboygan Police Department bungled its investigations into sexual harassment within the agency. 

The department failed to protect the women who came forward, instead exposing one to retaliation. Management downplayed harassment, repeatedly coming to contradictory conclusions that protected the harassers, issuing wrist-slap discipline and at times blaming the women for their own victimization. Supervisors did not criminally investigate whether officers may have committed pornography-related crimes. 

“Anytime there’s potential for unlawful conduct,” said Jim Palmer, executive director of the Wisconsin Professional Police Association, “it’s very common for agencies to call in another outside agency.” That did not happen.

As a result, the public, and some local officials, remained in the dark. The then-city human resources director, who should have been well-informed of female officers’ complaints per city policy, alleged a “cover up” when she later learned their full extent. 

Sheboygan County District Attorney Joel Urmanski learned from an outside whistleblower that officers had potentially lied to investigators — information he’s constitutionally required to disclose in cases where they testify in court. The chief claimed no such problem existed and said he did not believe Pray gave false statements during the investigation; Urmanski found the opposite. On Jan. 11, he added Pray to a list of law enforcement agents with documented credibility issues and began informing defense attorneys, allowing them to challenge Pray’s reliability. Urmanski is still weighing whether to list additional officers.

And Sheboygan city leaders did not hold the police accountable: They initially decided to hire outside attorneys to ensure the department properly addressed harassment complaints but discontinued the review after a female police officer filed a discrimination complaint against the city with the state Department of Workforce Development’s Equal Rights Division. In August, Sheboygan quietly settled the case for $110,000. The city denied any wrongdoing or liability in connection with the settlement.

Police leaders evidently worried about the officers’ conduct becoming public, noting in several discipline forms: “The impact your decisions have on the reputation of the department and community trust if the public became aware of your conduct can not be overstated as our reputation is key to the trust that the public places in us.”

People were held accountable, chief says

Domagalski, who became chief in 2010 after 18 years with the Milwaukee Police Department, said his department took the harassment complaints very seriously and held offending officers accountable. 

He said the department has made a lot of progress in building a culture that will make women comfortable at work, adding: “It’s something that we need to continue to improve upon.”

Women make up around one-sixth of the department’s officers, according to his estimates.

“This was a small group of people within the organization, and not the entire organization, that is engaged in this behavior (of sexual misconduct),” Domgalski said. 

“I think it’s some of the same behavior that you find going on in our society right now, quite frequently, unfortunately,” Domagalski said. “Unfortunately, as much as we would like to be at times, we’re not immune to that. … We’re hiring from the community and we’re hiring from the human race.”

Nationally, an estimated 71% of women and 41% of men working as police officers reported experiencing sexual harassment or assault on the job. Research shows sexual harassment disrupts victims’ career trajectories and increases financial strain.

Partially nude photos led to sexual harassment

Two female officers filed complaints in January 2021 that partially nude photographs of themselves were circulating through the department without their consent. The investigations substantiated this and other sexual harassment, along with other forms of misconduct. 

While off duty, a woman identified as Officer 1 sent a partially nude photo of herself to another officer no longer employed in Sheboygan, after he asked for photos of her several times, she said. But, without her consent, he showed the photo to Officer Helland while on duty. Helland then took a photo of it with his own phone and proceeded to show other male officers while on duty.

Officer 1 did not respond to a request for comment. Helland declined, citing departmental policy.

The investigation found Helland, then an officer in Sheboygan for three and a half years with no relevant discipline history, guilty of sexual harassment and other misconduct. Domagalski gave him a five-day unpaid suspension. 

A woman identified as Officer 8 — who eventually left the police force and received the $110,000 settlement from the city — alleged that Pray took a partially nude photo of her without consent, which the investigation found he had shared with other officers. 

Officer 8 told investigators of an incident after a 2019 training in which officers were instructed to drink heavily to practice using an instrument that measures breath alcohol levels, then continued drinking afterward. Standing in a hotel hallway, Officer 8 lifted her shirt and “flashed” Pray, at his request. Pray took a photo. When he showed her the next morning, she immediately told him to delete it. He said he would. 

But instead, Pray kept the photo. The next year, he showed the image to other Sheboygan police officers while on duty, despite knowing that Officer 8 would “most definitely” feel embarrassed and demeaned as a result, the records show.

The investigation also uncovered that while off duty, Officer 8 solicited a nude photo from Pray and showed it to a friend without Pray’s consent.

In Officer 8’s internal complaint to police, she also described enduring inappropriate comments from Pray for three years since being hired, such as, “When you going to let me smash,” a euphemism for having sex. She alleged he once kissed her on the neck and held a knife to her side without consent. She described them as close friends and said she was dismissive of his sexual advances.

During the investigation, Pray immediately admitted to flirting with and making sexual comments toward Officer 8. He alleged that she never asked him to stop, although she had “more of a nonreaction” to his comments over time. Pray denied kissing her on the neck and holding a knife to her side.

Investigators determined Pray’s sexual harassment of Officer 8 and others took “many forms”, and that Pray retaliated against Officer 8 during the probe by “making negative comments” about her to others. 

Investigators also determined Pray sexually harassed at least one other female officer, and he repeatedly asked for nude photos from a third. A fourth described him as flirty and very “forward and sexually explicit” toward her. 

According to records of the investigation, Pray worried he might be fired. He admitted that “what he did shows a pattern” and that he “felt he could use counseling” to “work on himself.” It’s unclear whether he sought therapy. Pray declined to comment for this story.

Domagalski gave him a 10-day unpaid suspension.

Nude images sent to ‘cheer up’ Pray after killing civilian

In 2020, Pray, who had been with the department for about two and a half years, shot and killed Kevan Ruffin, a 32-year-old man with documented mental illness. Urmanski, the district attorney, deemed the deadly force justified and declined to bring charges.

The sexual harassment investigations found that following the shooting, a female Sheboygan officer on duty, identified as Officer 11, sent Pray nude photos and videos of herself. An unnamed officer claimed to investigators Pray said she did this “to assist in cheering him up.” 

“It’s hard to imagine a scenario in which anyone either in law enforcement or in the community would find that appropriate,” said Palmer, the police association head. “Officers can have a dark sense of humor — and it, frankly, is one that’s often required, because of the things they have to see on a daily basis. (But) I think that would clearly strike anyone as out of bounds.”

A captain recommended a one-day suspension for Officer 11. Instead, the chief gave her a written reprimand, revoked her phone privileges while on duty for one year and required her to attend anti-harassment training. 

Pray was not found at fault for receiving the nude photographs but for showing them to other officers while on duty without her consent — a factor contributing to his overall discipline for sexual harassment.

More sexual harassment uncovered

The nude photographs led to additional harassment findings, records show. 

A third male officer found guilty of sexual harassment, identified as Officer 6, viewed partially nude photos of the female officers on Pray’s and Helland’s phones while on duty. A man identified as Officer 7 engaged in similar behavior, yet was not found guilty of sexual harassment. Officer 6 received a one-day suspension; Officer 7 received a written reprimand and had to attend anti-harassment training. 

The investigations found another male officer, Schnabel, solicited inappropriate relationships with female trainees. He received a written reprimand and lost his post as a training officer. Schnabel did not respond to a request for comment.

Although police have not yet provided Schnabel’s full discipline history from a public records request, the Sheboygan Press reported in 2014 he was suspended from the department for 30 days for driving with a blood alcohol content nearly three times the legal limit. 

Then-city Human Resources Director Vicky Schneider thought the discipline for officers was inadequate. But Domagalski said he disciplined officers according to what he thought was best for the department, for the community and, at some point, for those individuals.

The “purpose of discipline,” Domagalski said, is to “correct or change behavior.”

The officers have since been informed how their actions negatively affected the department, community and victims. “That kind of learning experience can sometimes really make a huge difference,” Domagalski said.

No criminal investigation

Pray’s and Helland’s conduct could have triggered a criminal investigation. 

State law prohibits creating and/or sharing nude images taken without consent where the person depicted had a reasonable expectation of privacy. Depending on the facts of the case, it can be a Class I felony, punishable by up to 1.5 years in prison, 2 years on extended supervision and a $10,000 fine. Officers convicted of felonies face possible decertification, which would bar them from working in law enforcement in Wisconsin.

If a member of the Sheboygan Police Department is “accused of potential criminal conduct,” the department’s policy manual states, a separate, parallel criminal investigation should occur — which the chief may request an outside law enforcement agency to handle. This did not happen, Domagalski said.

Whether a prosecutor would charge either with a crime depends on a full accounting of the facts, said University of Wisconsin clinical law professor Adam Stevenson, but he believes the circumstances warranted an investigation. 

Urmanski said he reviewed the investigative reports for potential criminal conduct, but at this time, does not plan to file charges. He noted no one has asked him to do so.

In an interview, Domagalski said he does not believe the officers accused of taking or distributing nude photos had violated the law. The chief added that he believed — contrary to the findings of his investigating lieutenant — that Officer 8 did consent to be photographed. 

Female complainants not protected

The investigative process that Domagalski described as “very strict” appears to have flouted best practices, documents show.

Throughout the four-month investigation, none of the accused officers was placed on administrative leave. The department’s manual indicates supervisors should place someone on leave when “a complaint of misconduct is of a serious nature,” or when “allowing the accused to continue to work would adversely affect” the department’s mission.

Most people “in any employment law setting” would consider placing the subject of such a complaint on administrative leave best practice, Palmer said. 

Leave helps to “maintain the integrity of the investigation,” he explained, and to ensure that the “alleged victim’s rights aren’t further abridged in any way.” 

At the very least, Palmer added, the department could have insulated Officer 8 by placing her and Pray on separate shifts, but that didn’t happen, either. 

Instead, supervisors instructed Pray to limit his contact with Officer 8 to work-related matters. Officer 8 alleged in her state complaint that Pray “flaunted” that order. 

Police leaders also determined Pray violated directives not to speak about the proceedings and had retaliated against Officer 8 by discussing the complaint. This, too, Palmer said, would have been a moment to place Pray on administrative leave. 

Domagalski did not explain why he never placed Pray on administrative leave during the investigation, saying: “It just didn’t happen, and I’m not going to get into back and forth on individual allegations.”

Investigators also did not look at either Helland or Pray’s personal phones to ensure they deleted nude photos of female co-workers that the women did not want them to have, according to the reports.

When Helland volunteered his phone for that reason — hours after a female officer asked investigating Sgt. Alexander Jaeger to prevent a nude photo of her from circulating further — Jaeger declined to look at it, writing he “trusted (Helland) to delete any and all media on this topic.”

Pray told supervisors he would volunteer his personal phone to aid the investigation but it “wiped itself” of all data when his son unplugged the phone during an update within a month after Officer 8 filed her complaint against him.

Strong findings, weakened conclusions

The captain who made the final discipline recommendations, James Veeser, weakened the investigation’s findings, a review of the internal records shows. 

Lt. Doug Teunissen substantiated Officer 8’s allegation that Pray took a photograph of her exposed chest without her knowledge or consent. 

“This investigation proves this actually occurred,” he wrote. “The photograph that was taken was taken without her consent, and she did not know about it until the day after this event occurred.” 

Yet in Veeser’s summary, he concluded that Officer 8 “allowed” Pray “to take the photo on his phone while she lifted her shirt.”

Domagalski stood by the captain’s conclusions, saying the facts “very clearly” show Officer 8 consented to the photo.

The investigative reports contain further contradictions. 

Teunissen wrote that “if at any time” Officer 8 had “made it very clear” to Pray “that his conduct was unwanted and that he needed to stop” firing would “probably be the only remedy appropriate.” He goes on to state that “this did not occur.” 

Yet the record is contradictory. The reports note twice that Officer 8 “told him to stop several times.” It also says: “She did not specifically tell him to stop though later provided an example of how she told him to stop.” Elsewhere, the report concludes: “It is not disputed that (Officer 8) may have told (Pray) to stop.”

Veeser decided Officer 8’s ostensible failure to tell Pray to stop “does impact how the overall situation may be viewed.” In an interview, Domagalski agreed: “Absolutely.”

But the department’s own policy says employees, while encouraged, are not required to inform their harasser that their actions are unwelcome.

Sandra Radtke, an employment lawyer who represents sexual harassment victims, said that while it’s ideal for a person to straightforwardly tell their harasser to stop, “that’s not the reality of sex harassment victims who are often intimidated and have a variety of other reasons.”  

Even if Officer 8 only tried to redirect, ignore or respond to Pray’s comments with humor, as investigators claim, it remains the case the behavior was unwelcome, Radtke said.

The legal standard for sexual harassment is “unwelcome conduct,” she explained. Unwelcomeness “can take all forms,” Radtke said, including not responding in kind or even looking at the table in embarrassment.

Officer 8: Department did not take harassment seriously 

In her Equal Rights Division complaint, Officer 8 said supervisors “took no genuine interest” in her allegations, asking very few questions, ignoring information she provided and refusing to take basic steps to protect her from continued harassment.

She said “every level” of management, up to Domagalski, failed to adequately address her harassment complaint but instead “disparaged” and retaliated against her. Researchers have found this is not uncommon in discrimination complaints.

The week after first informing supervisors, Officer 8 texted Teunissen — the lieutenant leading the investigation of her allegations — that Pray was sitting beside her at roll call despite orders to limit contact with her, and it was “very uncomfortable.” 

Teunissen responded, writing, “Stay positive and have a good shift.”

Officer 8 further alleged that Domagalski “literally laughed in my face” as she tried to explain continued harassment she experienced at work. She recalled Domagalski saying something to the effect of, “ ‘That’s just who (Pray) is. His confidence got him to where he is today.’ ” A witness to that conversation corroborated that the chief laughed briefly.

Domagalski said he disagrees with Officer 8’s characterization that he was dismissive of her complaint. Asked for comment, he said: “Just that I disagree with that.”  

Schneider, the former city human resources director, filed her own complaint with the state Equal Rights Division in January 2022 alleging the then-city administrator Todd Wolf retaliated against her for “opposing (the) discrimination and sexual harassment” at the police department. She resigned from her position in June. 

Schneider worried female officers’ sexual harassment complaints “were not being taken seriously” by the police because supervisors did not tell her the extent of the complaints, her attorney wrote in her filing. That is contrary to city policy, which states that the investigation of any complaint of harassment should be directed by the human resources director.

Schneider’s case is still pending.

The department also had “a profound lack of curiosity” about what happened to an incapacitated female officer at a hotel during a department-sponsored training, Schneider’s attorney wrote.

Redacted police reports show that after the department training, on the night Pray took a partially nude photo of Officer 8, he removed the pants of a highly intoxicated female officer lying on her hotel bed, according to another male officer who was present.

The other male officer “became uncomfortable” and left, telling Pray it was “time to go.” Pray did not leave with him, returning to the men’s bedroom five to 10 minutes later, the other officer said. The other male officer had also been drinking and the investigator indicated he could not recall all the evening’s events. The female officer — whom Schneider alleged awoke to find herself naked — told investigators she did not remember much of what happened that evening either. 

If investigators asked her whether she woke up clothed or not, that was redacted from the report. Officer 8, who was also present, may have been asleep and did not remember the end of the evening, although she recalled helping the other officer take off her shirt and bra for bed after vomiting on herself. 

The other male officer stated he did not feel Pray’s conduct was sexual but rather aimed at helping an inebriated colleague. The unredacted parts of supervisors’ conclusions from the investigation do not mention the incident nor does anyone appear to have been disciplined as a result. 

Captain ‘addressed’ training officer’s sexual harassment with a brief conversation. Then it continued.

The investigation into Schnabel also downplayed repeat, unwelcome misconduct. Kurt Zempel, the patrol captain, found Schnabel engaged in a “pattern of behavior” that “makes female employees uncomfortable,” including calling new recruits and trainees “hotties,” messaging them flirtatiously and soliciting relationships. 

Zempel found that Schnabel, a training officer, sent a winking kissy emoji to one female trainee, creating a hostile work environment. But he determined it did not constitute sexual harassment because it was not “overtly sexual.” He concluded that Schnabel’s flirty messages to another trainee who clearly “did not want to continue the conversations” with him did not constitute harassment because Schnabel eventually stopped texting her. 

Zempel said flirty messages with another new female employee were not harassment because she invited him on a hike, which, Zempel wrote, indicated the messages “were not unwelcome.” These determinations came after supervisors concluded that Schnabel did, in fact, harass a fourth female trainee through similar, more overtly sexual behavior.

Schnabel’s harassment of the fourth female trainee “was already addressed” by “counseling” he received months earlier, Zempel wrote. The investigation documents only a brief conversation between Zempel and Schnabel in which Schnabel “assured (Zempel) that he could be trusted to train female officers.” But Zempel noted that Schnabel’s “pattern” of soliciting inappropriate relationships and flirting with female trainees continued after that discussion.

Although Zempel admitted that Schnabel’s behavior “exposes the department to considerable liability when facing a formal sexual harassment complaint,” he determined that Schnabel’s other behavior did not constitute sexual harassment. 

At the end of the investigation, Domagalski demoted Schnabel from training officer and agreed to a written reprimand, as Zempel recommended. Zempel wrote that he believed this would mitigate the department’s liability and “correct” Schnabel’s behavior. 

Female officers blamed for victimization

Although the investigations showed both male and female Sheboygan police officers misused their personal phones while on duty, supervisors only stripped the women of their phone privileges.

Records show that Veeser and Teunissen required three female officers — Officers 1, 9 and 11 — to keep their personal cell phones in their department lockers while on duty for periods of time ranging from six weeks to one year, even though Officer 1 did not violate the department’s cell phone policy. None of the male officers, four of whom violated the cell phone policy, had his phone privileges restricted.

When asked to explain the discrepancy, Domagalski wrote by email: “Phone suspensions were modified and all officers were issued department phones.” He did not respond to requests for clarification.

The disparate punishment crystalizes dynamics at play throughout the investigative reports: Police supervisors in some cases blamed the women who experienced sexual harassment for their own victimization.

Writing in her state discrimination complaint, Officer 8 alleged that her first interview “was more focused on discounting or disregarding my claims, and trying to disparage me, than on investigating the facts and circumstances.”

She was also repeatedly questioned about a rumor she and Pray had sexual contact, which she denied. 

During the investigation, supervisors also equated off-duty conduct by Officer 8 with Pray’s harassment. While off duty, Officer 8 solicited a nude photo from Pray and showed it to a friend without Pray’s consent.

“This in effect was the same action that Pray did with Officer 8 but that he showed the photo to co-workers while on duty (it is understood he lied to Officer 8),” Veeser wrote. “There is no excuse for his actions but Officer 8 did something similar.”

Women experiencing harassment are routinely shamed or blamed for their victimization, research shows. They often experience discrimination and retaliation.

“This ‘she was asking for it’ is always going to be out there to some degree,” said Radtke, the employment attorney. “That’s why a lot of sexual harassment victims won’t come forward.”

This is a collaboration by the Sheboygan Press and the nonprofit Wisconsin Watch, (www.WisconsinWatch.org), which collaborates with WPR, PBS Wisconsin, other news media and the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Journalism and Mass Communication. All works created, published, posted or disseminated by Wisconsin Watch do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of UW-Madison or any of its affiliates.

Widespread sexual harassment draws discipline, resignations in Wisconsin police department is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

This story was produced as part of the NEW (Northeast Wisconsin) News Lab, a consortium of six news outlets covering northeastern Wisconsin.

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Clarification: Male officers found to have sexually harassed colleagues in 2021 did attend anti-harassment training; the entire police department was required to attend sexual harassment training, according to Director of Human Resources Adam Westbrook. Wisconsin Watch and the Sheboygan Press previously reported what officers attended anti-harassment training based on discipline forms, on which the officers found to have sexually harassed their colleagues were not ordered to attend anti-harassment training but other officers were.

Here’s some of the misconduct surfaced in the Sheboygan Police Department’s three 2021 sexual harassment investigations, and the resulting discipline:

• In all, the police department found four male officers — Bryan Pray, Nicholas Helland, Stephen Schnabel and Officer 6 — sexually harassed colleagues.
• A fifth man, Officer 7, engaged in similar behavior to Officer 6, including viewing nude photos of co-workers while on duty, but was not found guilty of sexual harassment.
• Three female officers who sent nude photos of themselves or viewed nude photos of their colleagues while on or off duty were disciplined, although none was found to have violated sexual harassment policies.
• No male officers, four of whom violated the cell phone policy, had their phone privileges restricted. Only female officers lost phone privileges. This included Officer 1, a victim of sexual harassment, who did not violate the department’s phone policy. 

Officer Bryan Pray

• Pray sexually harassed at least two female police officers.
  • Pray took a partially nude photo of Officer 8 and shared the photo with other officers while on duty — which she alleges was without her consent. 
  • Pray also made degrading comments toward and requests for sex from Officer 8, on and off duty, in person and electronically, over multiple years. He made sexually explicit comments to other female officers, too.
  • Officer 8 alleged Pray kissed her neck and held a knife to her ribs, both without consent. Pray denied this. 
  • Pray showed other officers nude photos of Officer 11 without her consent.
  • Pray repeatedly solicited nude photos from Officer 9 while on duty.
• Pray several times gave false information or was not completely forthcoming to investigators in interviews where he was required to tell the truth. Despite that, Capt. James Veeser wrote he believed Pray ultimately “provided a truthful rendition of events.”
• In direct violation of supervisors’ orders, Pray retaliated against Officer 8 by talking about her complaint with others during the investigation, including suggesting Officer 8 should be punished.
• Pray accessed restricted databases without authorization to obtain information about Officer 14’s ex-wife.

Officer Nicholas Helland

• While on duty, Helland viewed a topless photograph of Officer 1 on the phone of an officer who has since resigned, to whom Officer 1 sent the photo. Helland used his own phone to take a picture of the topless photograph, which he then showed to multiple male officers without Officer 1’s knowledge or consent.
• Helland spread a rumor that Pray and Officer 8 had a sexual encounter, which Officer 8 denies.
• Helland was not completely forthcoming in investigative interviews. He said he didn’t leave information out on purpose but “didn’t think of it at the time.”
• While on duty, Helland surveilled co-workers’ homes without authorization. He also misused departmental databases to conduct further unauthorized surveillance of co-workers, obtaining an address and running a license plate.
• Helland neglected his duties, including frequently meeting up with a former officer while on duty to talk about their personal lives, sometimes for an hour or more at a time. The other officer sometimes watched movies while they sat parked together, Helland said.

Other Sheboygan officers

• Schnabel sexually harassed one of his trainees, who needed his approval to become a full-fledged officer.  
• Schnabel also sent unwanted, flirtatious messages to three other young female recruits. Capt. Kurt Zempel decided this didn’t rise to the level of sexual harassment, but instead violated a policy banning the “unwelcome solicitation of a personal or sexual relationship while on duty or through the use of one’s official capacity.”
• Officer 11 sent nude photos of herself while on duty to Pray after he shot and killed a civilian. Another officer told investigators she did this to “assist in cheering him up.”
• Officer 9 was not forthcoming in investigative interviews. She also viewed nude photos of two female officers that Pray showed her on and off duty. 
• In addition to Pray and Helland, Officer 6 and Officer 14 abused police powers for non-work-related reasons. Officer 6 surveilled another officer’s spouse, finding a home address and running a license plate without authorization. Officer 14, a “veteran officer” of the department, improperly surveilled his ex-wife by checking a vehicle registration for non-law enforcement purposes. 

Discipline for officers

• Pray: 10-day unpaid suspension
• Helland: Five-day unpaid suspension
• Officer 6: One-day unpaid suspension
• Schnabel: Verbal admonishment, later written reprimand, removed from his post as a police training officer
• Officer 7: Written reprimand.
• Officer 11: Written reprimand, lost personal phone on duty for one year
• Officer 9: Written reprimand, lost personal phone on duty for six weeks
• Officer 14: Written reprimand
• Domagalski said by email that three additional officers were verbally admonished or disciplined. Their misconduct was not shown in redacted reports.

Sheboygan Police Department sexual harassment probes: What to know is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.