Jeffery Peterson was an educator for 30 years. During his career, he received a mayoral proclamation in recognition of his work and was named a Wisconsin Principal of the Year. But then things changed immediately after Peterson asked about insurance benefits for his partner.
Once it was learned by the school board learned that Peterson was gay, he started getting negative reviews, and the board claimed to have received an anonymous letter accusing Peterson of grooming children for sexual abuse. In his lawsuit, Peterson notes that the school board includes members of groups such as Moms for Liberty and Natural Family Foundation.
Peterson states that the work environment became hostile and that he started receiving thinly veiled threats from the school board, the superintendent, and political operatives who were close to board members.
Peterson also states that when the school board released information to support their decision to fire Peterson, they included private and personal information about him and his partner. Furthermore, they withheld dozens of pages of evidence that would have cleared him.
Peterson is suing for back pay, front pay, compensatory, and punitive damages. Unless the school board has more than an anonymous letter, they'd better hope the district has a good insurance policy, because this is going to cost them a lot of money.
