A Maine journalist Shawn McBreairty filed a lawsuit against the Brewer School Department and its superintendent in Maine after it attempted to silence him for reporting on the district allowing males to use the female restroom in schools.
According to McBreairty's legal team at the Center for American Liberty, a group of students at the school drafted a petition that asked officials at Brewer High School to "change the policy and protect girls’ privacy." It was having great success, but when the "radical Leftist school officials caught wind of the petition and immediately shut it down."
"These officials directly threatened students, telling these teenagers they could be charged with a 'hate crime' for merely voicing their opinion that boys should not be in girls’ bathrooms and locker rooms," the legal team alleged.
When McBreairty published a story about the situation, the school threatened legal action against him. In a statement on X, The Center for American Liberty said, "His crime? Publishing an article exposing the Department’s bathroom policy that endangers children."
In an interview with Libs of TikTok, McBreairty said the now superintendent of the school district “in his role as the principal of a school performed with minor students in a drag show." He added the superintendent is helping to “push this transgender bathroom policy."
"Hundreds of these schools have these woke policies that are putting females in harm's way," McBreairty continued. "So, I created a story called 'Girls bathrooms are not safe spaces when males are present,' and I published that on February 12th."
"Because of all the coverage of this article received, and [LibsOfTikTok’s] help as well, the government, in this case, the school, threatened me that if I didn't de-publish the content they were going to take legal action against me," he said.
McBreairty noted that he pulled the content down out of fear for his family's safety and finances. "Now we are basically forced to fight for our first amendment rights, and those first amendment rights of those students," he said. "They want to bully us into silence, they want to make sure that none of these stories are exposed, and that none of these parents understand how big a risk it is to have their children in these K-12 public/government-run schools."