LA Times Amplifies Inflammatory Right Wing Claims After School District Settlement

The Spreckels Union School District will pay nearly $100,000 to a family who alleges teachers tricked a student into an LGBTQ+ identity, despite independent investigation finding no basis for this claim.

by Evan Urquhart

A lawsuit making the bizarre claim that teachers stalked a middle schooler and tricked them into identifying as transgender was recently settled by the Speckels Union school district in Monterey California for $100,000. By the terms of the suit the school officially denied all wrongdoing, however many news accounts including in the LA Times have amplified the lawsuit’s allegations and omitted the denial of wrongdoing by the school.

screenshot from the LA Times

An independent investigation commissioned by the school did not find the teachers, Lori Caldeira and Kelly Baraki, who served as advisors to an LGBTQ+ club in the school called You Be You (or UBU), imposed a new gender identity on this student, or any other student. However, they did find the teachers in question unwisely made a presentation which represented UBU as engaging in deceptive practices, practices that did not reflect the actual activity of the group. An account of the presentation was highlighted on the blog of activist Abigail Shrier in 2021 and became a focus of conservative outrage at the time. The teachers were placed on administrative leave, and then resigned.

The suit was brought by Jessica Konen, the mother of a student who identified as transgender while at school. Konen was represented in the suit by Republican Harmeet Dhillon, founder of Center for American Liberty, a legal nonprofit that pushes conservative causes.

Dhillon is also involved in a lawsuit against Kaiser Permanente on behalf of detransitioner Kayla Lovedahl. Dhillon’s lawsuits often involve extensive descriptions of the plaintiff’s side of the story, at times going beyond what is typically found in a lawsuit focused on legal claims. These claims then become the basis of right-wing media coverage, often without further reporting, repeating the allegations as fact, and this story is no exception. Outlets such as the Daily Mail and the Washington Times credulously repeated the core claim that the child was influenced by teachers to identify as trans.

Concerningly, it is not at all clear that the child has ceased to identify as trans despite the lawsuit alleging they never identified that way. The suit alleges the child currently presents in their birth sex at a new school, but continues to be “confused about issues relating to her sexuality and gender.”

Right-wing media has hailed the verdict as a victory in the fight against “gender ideology” in schools. Meanwhile, a real human child is at the center of the lawsuit, one who apparently has been given no say in how their story is being used and, perhaps, abused.