By Guy Page
The October 27 lawsuit filed by Blake Allen, a girl on the high school volleyball team, and her family says Randolph Union High School administrators and school board members tried “to coerce her to agree with their transgender dogma” by instructing her to write a ‘reflective’ essay about her complaint of a biological male transgender student watching her undress in the girls’ lockerroom.
If the essay failed to sufficiently state how wrong she was to demand the student leave the locker room, she faced an additional three-day out-of-school suspension, the lawsuit states. The transgender student’s death threat against Allen went unpunished, the lawsuit claims.
Instead of writing a mea culpa essay, Allen filed suit – with the help of Vergennes lawyer Anthony Duprey and lawyers from the Alliance Defending Freedom.
This information appears on the plaintiff’s Unicourt summary of Allen et. al. vs. Millington et. al, filed October 27 in U.S. District Court. The full case summary appears below.
Case Summary
On October 27, 2022, Travis Allen, Jessica Allen, as next friend and mother of minor Blake Allen (collectively, “Plaintiffs”), represented by Anthony R. Duprey of Duprey Law, PLLC, and Tyson C. Langhofer, Philip A. Sechler, and Matthew Hoffmann of Alliance Defending Freedom, filed a civil rights lawsuit against Layne Millington, Lisa Floyd, Caty Sutton, and Orange Southwest School District Board (“OSSD Board”), (collectively, “Defendants”), seeking declaratory and injunctive relief, along with damages for alleged violations of the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution. This case was filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Vermont with Judge Christina Reiss presiding.
In the complaint, Plaintiffs alleged, “Travis Allen and his fourteen-year-old daughter, Blake, were punished for expressing their views on a matter of profound public concern: whether a teenage male who identifies as female should be permitted to change in a girls’ locker room regardless of the discomfort experienced by girls in that room. In objecting to a male being in the room while the girls are changing, Travis and Blake each made comments underscoring that the trans-identifying student is in fact a male, including by using male pronouns.”
Plaintiffs further alleged, “Defendants disciplined both of them. The locker room controversy presented itself in the Orange Southwest School District on September 21, 2022, when a 14-year-old biological male on the Randolph Union High School (‘RUHS’) girls’ volleyball team-here called ‘T.S.’ entered the girls’ locker room while the girls were changing.”
Plaintiffs also alleged, “Having never been warned of the possibility of this encounter by RUHS, multiple girls in the locker room, including Blake, became upset; and multiple parents, including Blake’s mother, Jessica, called the RUHS co-principals’ office to object. Blake expressed her views on the subject the next day, when a few students discussed it with her in French class – a class T.S. does not attend.”
Plaintiffs continued, alleging that “punishing Blake for expressing a dissident view was not enough; Defendants also seek to coerce her to agree with their transgender dogma. Defendants intend to render their own judgment on this reflective essay, and if they deem it ‘lacking good faith,’ Blake will be required to serve an additional three days’ out-of-school suspension. Meanwhile, Defendants took no action at all against T.S. – who said, during math class the week after entering the girls’ locker room, ‘I’m going to fk**ing kill Blake Allen.’”
Additionally, Plaintiffs alleged, “Travis expressed his views on the locker-room issue outside of school soon after hearing about the threat that T.S. had made against his daughter. Millington, OSSD’s Superintendent, found that this post ‘misgendered a transgender student’ and suspended Travis from his job as middle school girls’ soccer coach without pay for the rest of the season.”
Plaintiffs then alleged, “The First Amendment does not countenance this kind of government censorship, where a public school mandates that students and coaches refrain from expressing any view that offends its prescribed views, particularly on an issue as important as whether the school should permit males identifying as girls to undress, shower and change in the girls’ locker room. Travis and Blake Allen were entitled to express their views on that issue and, in expressing those views, to support them with what is a biological fact-that a biological teenage male is, indeed, a male.”
Plaintiffs presented four claims for relief, including for the alleged violation of the Civil Rights Act and the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution.
In the prayer for relief, Plaintiffs requested a judgment granting declaratory and injunctive relief. Plaintiffs also requested an award of nominal and compensatory damages, along with costs of litigation.
This is a summary of a legal complaint. All statements, claims, and allegations listed herein reflect the position of the plaintiff only and do not represent the position of UniCourt. Additionally, this case summary may not reflect the current position of the parties to this litigation or the current status of this case. To view the latest case updates and court documents, please sign up for a UniCourt account.
Courthouse: Vermont District Court. Presiding Judge: Christina Reiss. Plaintiffs: Travis Allen, Jessica Allen, Blake Allen. Defendants: Layne Millington, Lisa Floyd, Caty Sutton Orange Southwest School District Board. Plaintiff Attorney: Anthony R. Duprey, Esq., Attorney at Duprey Law, PLLC, Vergennes, VT 05491.