After her nonbinary child was harassed at school, a mom was 'shocked' to win Title IX ruling

Almost two agonizing years. Hoping. Waiting. Finally, an “overwhelming” conclusion.

Brooke Johnson-Paquette said she also felt vindicated when the U.S. Department of Education said last week that Remus, her transgender, nonbinary child, had been continuously harassed in their rural Wisconsin school district, a violation of Title IX, a federal law that protects students against harassment.

For years, Remus, now 17, was called derogatory slurs commonly associated with LGBTQ+ people by classmates in the small Rhinelander, Wisconsin, school district and purposely bumped into other students at school. The Education Department’s report said the harassment was severe enough that one high school teacher admitted she couldn’t protect Remus from being harassed by other students.

The anguish became so bad that Johnson-Paquette said in an exclusive interview with USA TODAY that the family felt “ostracized and pushed out by our community.” They briefly moved out of state, but not before she filed a complaint with the federal Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights in 2021.

On Thursday, the department told Johnson-Paquette it reached an agreement requiring the School District of Rhinelander to comply with Title IX and provide additional training to students and staff on recognizing discrimination, harassment, and bullying.

“We’ve been on this journey for nearly five years without some resolution, until now,” Johnson-Paquette said Monday, adding the decision, and the national attention, are still sinking in. “This proves that our lives are full of merit and proof of what we’ve been through.”

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Education Department: ‘Unprecedented surge of civil rights complaints’

The agreement recognizing what Remus Johnson endured is the latest action taken by the Education Department’s civil rights arm to crack down on noncompliant schools using the landmark gender equity law, as concerns persist about discrepancies in how students of different genders are treated in K-12 schools. The Education Department intervened after Johnson-Paquette said reported complaints to the school district about Remus being “mocked and targeted” by their classmates weren’t addressed.

The complaint came at the same time the Education Department “saw an unprecedented surge of civil rights complaints” regarding students in U.S. schools, wrote Catherine Lhamon, the civil rights office head, in an annual report. The office received nearly 19,000 complaints during the 2022 fiscal year compared with almost 17,000 in 2016. More than 9,000 complaints in 2022 involved Title IX, the OCR reported.

At the same time, threats of violence against the LGBTQI+ community are intensifying, according to the Biden administration and a recent Homeland Security report to law enforcement agencies. That was followed by the Human Rights Campaign declaring a state of emergency for LGBTQ+ people in the U.S. and issuing a “Know your rights” information sheet for the community.

‘In fear for my child’s life’

Johnson-Paquette said she filed a complaint with the OCR’s Chicago office during Remus’ freshman year. That was two years after Remus told their family they were “different” and nonbinary, Johnson-Paquette said.

Research shows that more “gender-expansive” young people like Remus have been coming out at an earlier age in the last five years, said Robert Marx, an associate professor of child and adolescent development at San Jose State University.

“While it’s tempting to say they’re encouraged by TikTok and other social media, the reality is they are gaining more confidence in telling their parents, guardians, and friends. And that’s having a ripple effect,” Marx said.

Johnson-Paquette said she began educating herself about what it means to be LGBTQ+ for Remus’ safety. Johnson-Paquette, 43, a Rhinelander native, read LGBTQ+ literature, watched documentaries and chatted with concerned friends. The family tried three therapists in the area to help them, but Johnson-Paquette said they weren’t effective.

The family now has a psychologist more familiar with LGBTQ issues, Johnson-Paquette said. They also plan to join a gender-affirming program in their new hometown in rural central Wisconsin.

“We went through our ups and downs in terms of our communication,” Johnson-Paquette said. “I was in fear for my child’s life from the mental and physical abuse. It’s very hard to endure.”

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‘The little guys in a small school district’

Remus and their family were optimistic the harassment would stop as Remus entered high school.

It didn’t.

“They were shouting the d-slur and the f-slur at me. They called me a ‘She-male,'” Remus said about their classmates. “But I still wanted to go to school. I wanted friends.”

In its investigation, the OCR expressed concerns how the Rhinelander school district miscoded sex-based harassment, “including the use of a slur for LGBTQI+ people, as ‘peer mistreatment.'” The OCR report also noted the district’s response to the allegations by changing Remus’ high school schedule to three in-person classes and the rest through “self-directed study.”

But Johnson-Paquette said despite “a small ally of caring teachers,” online learning led Remus to feel isolated and depressed. Remus said they began having feelings of “self-hatred and wishing that I wasn’t a part of this world.”

Remus was eventually treated for an eating disorder.

“It’s a tough thing to fight when you’re the little guys in a small school district in a small town where everybody knows everybody,” Johnson-Paquette said. “Everyone was trying to tell my child to go back into a closet and I wasn’t going to do that. I don’t think that’s fair.”

The district now plans to offer “age-appropriate” programming to students and staff training to comply with Title IX and how to respond to complaints of sex-based harassment, Rhinelander Superintendent Eric Burke said. The district will also conduct a “climate survey” to gauge such harassment.

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Weighing all legal options

Remus graduated from their new high school a year early, thanks to taking an accelerated course load. Remus admits to still having “some social anxiety issues.”