A Wisconsin educator once named the state's Principal of the Year says the same school board that honored him later fabricated child abuse allegations to drive him out because he is gay.

A Campaign That Started at the Ballot Box

Peterson became principal of Raymond School in 2021. According to his lawsuit, the trouble began after a contentious 2022 school board election put Moms for Liberty-backed candidates Gwen Keller and Janell Wise in office alongside board president Audrey Kostuch. Soon after, the board granted Arthur Binhack, described in the complaint as an unelected "political operative" with no children at the school and a history of posting Nazi quotes online, sweeping access to scrutinize staff, teachers, and policy.

The district also brought on Michael Garvey as interim superintendent. Peterson alleges Garvey made repeated comments about LGBTQ+ teachers that fall that amounted to veiled warnings his sexual orientation was a liability. Despite 29 years in Wisconsin schools without a single poor review, Peterson says Garvey gave him the first bad evaluation of his career, after just 34 days working alongside him part-time.

Flyers, Records Requests, and an Anonymous Letter

By late summer 2023, the lawsuit says, Binhack was distributing flyers blaming Peterson for bringing "liberal extremists" into the community and publicly campaigning for his removal. He allegedly coordinated with Kari Morgan, then-president of the Village of Raymond, and Racine County Moms for Liberty vice chair Joann Koenecke on a public records request targeting Peterson.

What happened next is the crux of the case. According to the complaint, Morgan pulled a targeted 36-page subset out of a records packet exceeding 100 pages, stripping out material that would have helped Peterson, and loaded the selected documents onto thumb drives alongside an anonymous letter accusing him of grooming children. The lawsuit says the letter was actually written by Morgan, Keller, Kostuch, and board member Amanda Falaschi.

The Defendants and their proxies fabricated a pretext to fire Peterson based on his sexual orientation.

At a public meeting soon after, Kostuch, Wise, Keller, and Falaschi voted not to renew Peterson's contract. Board member Amy Helvick dissented, saying Peterson "was not being fairly or accurately assessed." In May 2024, rather than terminating him outright, the district put Peterson on unpaid leave for the remainder of his contract, a move his attorneys argue was a termination in all but name and a breach of his "for cause" protections.

What the Board Says

The district points to an outside misconduct investigation by the law firm Stadler Sacks, LLC as the actual basis for its decision. Peterson's lawsuit calls that investigation biased, alleging the resulting report leaned heavily on his exercise of protected free speech to justify the adverse action against him, a detail that forms part of a separate First Amendment claim in the suit.

More Context

Peterson filed complaints with Wisconsin's Equal Rights Division and the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission back in September 2023. Nearly three years later, he's still waiting on a state decision, an ordeal that underscores how slow official channels can be even when the underlying facts, if proven, are stark. His federal case, filed in the Eastern District of Wisconsin in October 2024 and amended this month, now names ten defendants across eleven legal claims.

Peterson says the fallout cost him more than a job. He couldn't find work in education for a year after his ouster, a gap that speaks to how reputational damage from unproven grooming accusations can follow an educator long after the allegations themselves collapse under scrutiny.

MQ's Take

This case fits a pattern we've watched intensify across the country: local activist groups embedding themselves in school boards, then using the machinery of "parental rights" and public records to manufacture scandal around LGBTQ+ educators. The grooming smear in particular has become a reliable weapon precisely because it's so damaging and so hard to fully clear once it's out in public. If Peterson's allegations hold up, this isn't a story about a personnel dispute. It's a story about a coordinated effort to weaponize the worst possible accusation against a gay man who, by every account before 2022, was simply good at his job.

Sources: LGBTQ Nation, PinkNews

Cover photo: Greece-China News / Pexels

school boards

Wisconsin Principal Says School Board Faked Grooming Claims to Push Him Out