RADIOMay 20, 2022

Mom: Misgendering led to HARASSMENT charges against my son

13-year-old Braden is a good kid who has never been in serious trouble, his mom tells Glenn. But he's now under a school investigation for HARASSMENT claims. It all started when Braden defended a friend who was being berated for accidentally using the wrong pronouns when addressing another classmate. His mother, Robin, and Luke Berg, from the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty, join Glenn to detail the completely ‘OUTRAGEOUS’ case now facing this middle schooler...

Transcript

Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors

GLENN: So Rose Rabidoux is the -- is the mom of the 13-year-old Bradon. She's just one of the mothers, but she would agree to come on with us.

And Luke Berg is with the Wisconsin Institute of Law and Liberty. He is -- if I'm not mistaken, Luke, I want to get this right. You were with the Wisconsin Department of Justice, right?

LUKE: Yeah. Before I joined Will for about four years, then I joined Will two and a half years ago.

GLENN: Okay. And you were the assistant attorney general? So you're a guy who knows, you know, the law in the state, and have credibility because you were on the -- the stateside for a long time. First of all, Rose, thank you for think on the program. Thank you for being brave enough to come on, and tell the story. Can you -- in your own words, tell what's happened?

ROSE: Sure. Absolutely. First of all, thank you for having us on. This is outrageous. It is outrageous. Sexual harassment has absolutely nothing to do with incorrect pronouns. Proper pronouns. Whatever you want to call it.

GLENN: Misgendering, I think is the phrase.

ROSE: Misgendering. So the students. The student who is a girl. Dresses like a girl. Wears make up like a girl. Decided last month, to tell the entire class, that she wanted to be referred to as they/them. And it wasn't even that these boys refused. They were confused. My son came home confused. Mom, they are plural pronouns, and I don't understand how to use them. And so I told him, to call her by name. But if you didn't, she will let you have it. And that's what she was doing. She was letting one of his friends have it. Because he is mis-gendered. He used the wrong pronoun. And Bradon stood up and said, he doesn't have to use your pronouns. It's his constitutional right. And that is why --

GLENN: God bless Bradon.

ROSE: I know. I know.

GLENN: And so --

ROSE: He's a good kid.

GLENN: He's a straight A student, right?

ROSE: He is. He works hard.

GLENN: Okay. Has he been in trouble before?

ROSE: He has not been in trouble like this. He is a normal boy. Has he said a cuss word and I got a call from the principal? Absolutely.

GLENN: Oh, my gosh. What kind of animal are you raising.

ROSE: Nothing like this.

GLENN: So, Rose, I want you to know, when my son was 13. He was an angel. So they -- when you called the school, what did they say?

ROSE: Well, they called me. So the elementary school Principal. He was the one in charge of just gathering the facts. He called me, forewarning me that he was going to be sending over this email, this sexual harassment allegations.

And, you know, at first, you think, sexual harassment, oh, my gosh. That's rape. That's inappropriate touching.

These are outrageous things.

GLENN: Right.

ROSE: And my son is a kid. He's not sexually active. He's very much -- you know, plays video games with his friends. He's a boy.

GLENN: Yeah.

ROSE: And -- and so when he told me it was for not using the proper pronouns. I mean, I just thought it was a joke --

GLENN: Did you laugh?

ROSE: I did. I did.

GLENN: I would have too.

ROSE: I said, this has got to be a joke. I told him, this is wrong, in so many ways. And he wanted to meet with us the next day. So I guess, it's this generic form letter via email, saying he's being charged sexual harassment for not using proper pronouns. But no details. Not who accused him. Not what it is that he did. No information whatsoever. We meet with him on Tuesday. And we go in, and we're interrogated. As Bradon is asked a bunch of questions. To which Bradon answers, honestly. Did I make a mistake? Yes. Did I accidentally call her she or her?

Yes. But I didn't mean to. I meant to call her by her name. Because I don't understand the pronoun.

GLENN: Well, I think he was right on his First Amendment right. You have a right to do that.

That's not sexual harassment. This is political correctness gone insane. Luke. Luke.

ROSE: AWOL.

GLENN: Help me out here. What does the law say? Have they charged -- have they charged Bradon and his other friends?

LUKE: So it's an internal school investigation. So, you know, they -- it's like a 90-day process. Where they're gathering information. And the end of this, they will decide what to do. And it could be a suspension or an expulsion at the worst. So it's not a criminal complaint. It's not a civil lawsuit yet. It's an internal school investigation.

GLENN: Right. And I could see -- I can see, if you needed to gather the facts, why you would have 90 days. But this seems pretty darn simple. You know.

LUKE: Yeah. And actually, Title IX regulations, and their own policies say, that if you get allegations, that even if proved, wouldn't amount to sexual harassment, you shouldn't start the investigation. You should dismiss it immediately. And that's what should have happened here. Right?

As soon as they heard the allegations were solely for mispronouning. They shouldn't have even interviewed people. They should have dismissed it immediately. Because there's nothing anywhere, in the law. Nothing in the regs. Nothing in the policy. That would cover mispronouning. Because mispronouning is not a word.

Much less in the law.

(laughter)

So what we told them in the district, is you should have dismissed it, and you need to immediately dismiss it, so that they don't have to go through this whole 90-day investigation and have this on their reputation. Have this on their record, and have the stress of this, for 90 days. You need to dismiss it right away.

GLENN: So, Rose, there's a reason, I mean, I really like milk and cheese. But there's a reason I don't live in Wisconsin. Because Wisconsin is the leading state of progressivism. Or has been for a long time. Is the area you live in, is it real progressive? Or is this just the school?

ROSE: No. This is the school. And this is not -- so I moved to this area in 2019 for this school district. Because everything that had been reported about this school district, was, it's great academically. The graduation rate was 98 percent. And we moved up here, and covid happened. And so I gave them a chance, just because things were kind of out of whack with covid.

But this school district has not held up to its side at all. Academically, I believe my -- my children are bored. There's no homework. I knew something was wrong when there was no homework. And -- and now this is just -- this is completely outrageous.

GLENN: All right. So, Luke, what's -- because it's not enough for them to just say, oh. Okay. We're not going to do that. Or we're sorry. Or whatever. We have got to follow these things through, so it doesn't happen again.

LUKE: Yeah. That's absolutely right. I mean, the first and most important thing is getting this off these kids' records. That's what we're asking the school to do immediately. We're also asking them to make changes so that this doesn't happen again. Because this is clearly inappropriate obviously. There seems to be a trend in the school district. We're actually aware of another family, who has had sexual harassment charges for a single comment, allegedly mispronouning another student. So this is -- this is -- the district's vision, apparently, to use the sexual harassment process as a weapon, to force students into their preferred mode of speaking, and that's obviously a huge First Amendment problem. So, yeah. We're asking them to make changes. We'll see if they do. But that's part of why we're calling attention to this publicly and talking about it publicly, because they need to be shamed.

This needs to be called attention to, so that some changes are made. Please keep in touch with me. Let me know what the outcome is on this. And the twist and turns. We would like to follow this.

This is happening all over the country, not just all over your district. It's happening all over the country. The teacher's unions are -- are responsible for a lot of it. That, and the federal government, as well. The Department of Education. And it is destroying our kids. Just destroying us.

And it will in the end, just destroy our nation. So thank you for the fight, Rose. Thank you for standing up.

And I wish you, and the other families, all the best in this. God bless.

ROSE: Thank you. Thank you so much.

LUKE: Thank you.

GLENN: You bet. All right. Back in just a minute.

Could passengers have SAVED Iryna Zarutska?

Surveillance footage of the murder of Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska in Charlotte, NC, reveals that the other passengers on the train took a long time to help her. Glenn, Stu, and Jason debate whether they were right or wrong to do so.

Transcript

Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors

GLENN: You know, I'm -- I'm torn on how I feel about the people on the train.

Because my first instinct is, they did nothing! They did nothing! Then my -- well, sit down and, you know -- you know, you're going to be judged. So be careful on judging others.

What would I have done? What would I want my wife to do in that situation?

STU: Yeah. Are those two different questions, by the way.

GLENN: Yeah, they are.

STU: I think they go far apart from each other. What would I want myself to do. I mean, it's tough to put yourself in a situation. It's very easy to watch a video on the internet and talk about your heroism. Everybody can do that very easily on Twitter. And everybody is.

You know, when you're in a vehicle that doesn't have an exit with a guy who just murdered somebody in front of you, and has a dripping blood off of a knife that's standing 10 feet away from you, 15 feet away from you.

There's probably a different standard there, that we should all kind of consider. And maybe give a little grace to what I saw at least was a woman, sitting across the -- the -- the aisle.

I think there is a difference there. But when you talk about that question. Those two questions are definitive.

You know, I know what I would want myself to do. I would hope I would act in a way that didn't completely embarrass myself afterward.

But I also think, when I'm thinking of my wife. My advice to my wife would not be to jump into the middle of that situation at all costs. She might do that anyway. She actually is a heck of a lot stronger than I am.

But she might do it anyway.

GLENN: How pathetic, but how true.

STU: Yes. But that would not be my advice to her.

GLENN: Uh-huh.

STU: Now, maybe once the guy has certainly -- is out of the area. And you don't think the moment you step into that situation. He will turn around and kill you too. Then, of course, obviously. Anything you can do to step in.

Not that there was much anyone on the train could do.

I mean, I don't think there was an outcome change, no matter what anyone on that train did.

Unfortunately.

But would I want her to step in?

Of course. If she felt she was safe, yes.

Think about, you said, your wife. Think about your daughter. Your daughter is on that train, just watching someone else getting murdered like that. Would you advise your daughter to jump into a situation like that?

That girl sitting across the aisle was somebody's daughter. I don't know, man.

JASON: I would. You know, as a dad, would I advise.

Hmm. No.

As a human being, would I hope that my daughter or my wife or that I would get up and at least comfort that woman while she's dying on the floor of a train?

Yeah.

I would hope that my daughter, my son, that I would -- and, you know, I have more confidence in my son or daughter or my wife doing something courageous more than I would.

But, you know, I think I have a more realistic picture of myself than anybody else.

And I'm not sure that -- I'm not sure what I would do in that situation. I know what I would hope I would do. But I also know what I fear I would do. But I would have hoped that I would have gotten up and at least tried to help her. You know, help her up off the floor. At least be there with her, as she's seeing her life, you know, spill out in under a minute.

And that's it other thing we have to keep in mind. This all happened so rapidly.

A minute is -- will seem like a very long period of time in that situation. But it's a very short period of time in real life.

STU: Yeah. You watch the video, Glenn. You know, I don't need the video to -- to change my -- my position on this.

But at his seem like there was a -- someone who did get there, eventually, to help, right? I saw someone seemingly trying to put pressure on her neck.

GLENN: Yeah. And tried to give her CPR.

STU: You know, no hope at that point. How long of a time period would you say that was?

Do you know off the top of your head?

GLENN: I don't know. I don't know. I know that we watched the video that I saw. I haven't seen past 30 seconds after she --

STU: Yeah.

GLENN: -- is down. And, you know, for 30 seconds nothing is happening. You know, that is -- that is not a very long period of time.

STU: Right.

GLENN: In reality.

STU: And especially, I saw the pace he was walking. He certainly can't be -- you know, he may have left the actual train car by 30 seconds to a minute. But he wasn't that far away. Like he was still in visual.

He could still turn around and look and see what's going on at that point. So certainly still a threat is my point. He has not, like, left the area. This is not that type of situation.

You know, I -- look, as you point out, I think if I could be super duper sexist for a moment here, sort of my dividing line might just be men and women.

You know, I don't know if it's that a -- you're not supposed to say that, I suppose these days. But, like, there is a difference there. If I'm a man, you know, I would be -- I would want my son to jump in on that, I suppose. I don't know if he could do anything about it. But you would expect at least a grown man to be able to go in there and do something about it. A woman, you know, I don't know.

Maybe I'm -- I hope --

GLENN: Here's the thing I -- here's the thing that I -- that causes me to say, no. You should have jumped in.

And that is, you know, you've already killed one person on the train. So you've proven that you're a killer. And anybody who would have screamed and got up and was with her, she's dying. She's dying. Get him. Get him.

Then the whole train is responsible for stopping that guy. You know. And if you don't stop him, after he's killed one person, if you're not all as members of that train, if you're not stopping him, you know, the person at the side of that girl would be the least likely to be killed. It would be the ones that are standing you up and trying to stop him from getting back to your daughter or your wife or you.

JASON: There was a -- speaking of men and women and their roles in this. There was a video circling social media yesterday. In Sweden. There was a group of officials up on a stage. And one of the main. I think it was health official woman collapses on stage. Completely passes out.

All the men kind of look away. Or I don't know if they're looking away. Or pretending that they didn't know what was going on. There was another woman standing directly behind the woman passed out.

Immediately springs into action. Jumps on top. Grabs her pant leg. Grabs her shoulder. Spins her over and starts providing care.

What did she have that the other guys did not? Or women?

She was a sheepdog. There is a -- this is my issue. And I completely agree with Stu. I completely agree with you. There's some people that do not respond this way. My issue is the proportion of sheepdogs versus people that don't really know how to act. That is diminishing in western society. And American society.

We see it all the time in these critical actions. I mean, circumstances.

There are men and women, and it's actually a meme. That fantasize about hoards of people coming to attack their home and family. And they sit there and say, I've got it. You guys go. I'm staying behind, while I smoke my cigarette and wait for the hoards to come, because I will sacrifice myself. There are men and women that fantasize of block my highway. Go ahead. Block my highway. I'm going to do something about it. They fantasize about someone holding up -- not a liquor store. A convenience store or something. Because they will step in and do something. My issue now is that proportion of sheepdogs in society is disappearing. Just on statistical fact, there should be one within that train car, and there were none.

STU: Yeah. I mean --

JASON: They did not respond.

STU: We see what happens when they do, with Daniel Penny. Our society tries to vilify them and crush their existence. Now, there weren't that many people on that train. Right?

At least on that car. At least it's limited. I only saw three or four people there, there may have been more. I agree with you, though. Like, you see what happens when we actually do have a really recent example of someone doing exactly what Jason wants and what I would want a guy to do. Especially a marine to step up and stop this from happening. And the man was dragged by our legal system to a position where he nearly had to spend the rest of his life in prison.

I mean, I -- it's insanity. Thankfully, they came to their senses on that one.

GLENN: Well, the difference between that one and this one though is that the guy was threatening. This one, he killed somebody.

STU: Yeah. Right. Well, but -- I think -- but it's the opposite way. The debate with Penny, was should he have recognize that had this person might have just been crazy and not done anything?

Maybe. He hadn't actually acted yet. He was just saying things.

GLENN: Yeah. Well --

STU: He didn't wind up stabbing someone. This is a situation where these people have already seen what this man will do to you, even when you don't do anything to try to stop him. So if this woman, who is, again, looks to be an average American woman.

Across the aisle. Steps in and tries to do something. This guy could easily turn around and just make another pile of dead bodies next to the one that already exists.

And, you know, whether that is an optimal solution for our society, I don't know that that's helpful.

In that situation.

THE GLENN BECK PODCAST

Max Lucado on Overcoming Grief in Dark Times | The Glenn Beck Podcast | Ep 266

Disclaimer: This episode was filmed prior to the assassination of Charlie Kirk. But Glenn believes Max's message is needed now more than ever.
The political world is divided, constantly at war with itself. In many ways, our own lives are not much different. Why do we constantly focus on the negative? Why are we in pain? Where is God amid our anxiety and fear? Why can’t we ever seem to change? Pastor Max Lucado has found the solution: Stop thinking like that! It may seem easier said than done, but Max joins Glenn Beck to unpack the three tools he describes in his new book, “Tame Your Thoughts,” that make it easy for us to reset the way we think back to God’s factory settings. In this much-needed conversation, Max and Glenn tackle everything from feeling doubt as a parent to facing unfair hardships to ... UFOs?! Plus, Max shares what he recently got tattooed on his arm.

THE GLENN BECK PODCAST

Are Demonic Forces to Blame for Charlie Kirk, Minnesota & Charlotte Killings?

This week has seen some of the most heinous actions in recent memory. Glenn has been discussing the growth of evil in our society, and with the assassination of civil rights leader Charlie Kirk, the recent transgender shooter who took the lives of two children at a Catholic school, and the murder of Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska, how can we make sense of all this evil? On today's Friday Exclusive, Glenn speaks with BlazeTV host of "Strange Encounters" Rick Burgess to discuss the demon-possessed transgender shooter and the horrific assassination of Charlie Kirk. Rick breaks down the reality of demon possession and how individuals wind up possessed. Rick and Glenn also discuss the dangers of the grotesque things we see online and in movies, TV shows, and video games on a daily basis. Rick warns that when we allow our minds to be altered by substances like drugs or alcohol, it opens a door for the enemy to take control. A supernatural war is waging in our society, and it’s a Christian’s job to fight this war. Glenn and Rick remind Christians of what their first citizenship is.