On December 30, 2025, Kennedy Hunt P.C. filed a complaint against the McLean County Unit No. 5 School District Board of Education, alleging that the school district repeatedly discriminated against our client, a minor transgender girl, based on sex, gender identity, and nonconformity to sex-based stereotypes, in violation of Title IX and the Illinois Human Rights Act, the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution, and the Illinois Civil Remedies Restoration Act.
According to the lawsuit, our client’s mother enrolled her daughter in the McLean County Unit School District in January 2024. She alleges that she worked with the school district to ensure the school would be a supportive environment for her transgender child.
The lawsuit states that in January 2024, our client formally signed a document to amend her gender identity, name, and pronouns at a meeting with the school district. According to the lawsuit, the school district assured our client that her gender marker, name, and pronouns would be updated across all district records before her first day of school.
The next day, according to the lawsuit, our client went to her first day of school and found that her gender marker, name, and pronouns were not updated across all district records as promised. The lawsuit claims that the school district assigned our client a student e-mail address that included her former name (“dead name”).
The lawsuit also alleges that on her first day:
[Our client’s] teacher asked [her] for her e-mail address so he could add her to his Google Classroom. [Our client], though embarrassed, provided her school-issued e-mail address. [Our client’s] teacher then asked [our client], “Who is [dead name]?” in front of the class. Before class ended, one student told another, “Watch me bully them until they transfer.” After being dead-named in the presence of other students, [Our client’s] classmates started harassing her because of her sex and gender identity. The bullying included verbal harassment, derogatory comments about her gender identity, deliberate misgendering, social exclusion, and threats of physical harm.
According to the lawsuit, although the school district assured our client that her previous gender information would stay private, our client’s teachers repeatedly questioned her and other District staff about our client’s gender identity.
The lawsuit alleges that our client’s mother then complained to the school district’s Director of Equity and Inclusion about the bullying, threats, and dead-naming incident. The director told our client’s mother that she’d “look into it.” Our client’s mother was allegedly later told by school district leaders, “Middle school girls are mean.”
Our client’s mother then allegedly learned about a TikTok account in which her daughter’s classmates allegedly used the account to threaten and bully her. The lawsuit states that our client’s mother emailed the school district a screenshot of the TikTok account, but the district allegedly did not take any meaningful action.
According to the lawsuit, our client’s mother repeatedly told the school district about instances in which our client’s classmates threatened our client. Our client’s mother and her partner then told the school district that our client was afraid to leave her home, ride the school bus, or attend school due to the escalating harassment. But, according to the lawsuit, the district did not take any meaningful action.
The lawsuit continues:
On March 7, 2024, [our client] was attacked at school by another student (“Student R”). Student R approached [our client] from behind, pulled her hair, and forcefully and repeatedly slammed her head to the ground until [she] lost consciousness. Student R then punched [our client] in the face until someone pulled her off. After this attack, no one, including [school district’s] teachers or staff, helped [our client] or inquired about her well-being. Later, after [our client] began to have trouble seeing, she went to the nurse’s office, where the nurse and [the school’s principal] called [our client’s mother] and informed her that [our client] had been involved in “a fight” and had “hit” her head. [Our client’s mother] did not understand that [our client] had been attacked, rather than involved in a mutual fight, and that [our client’s] head had been forcibly slammed into the ground, rather than merely “hit” – until she requested and reviewed the video footage of the incident.
According to the lawsuit, our client was later diagnosed with a concussion, a potential traumatic brain injury (TBI), and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The lawsuit alleges the trauma has left our client feeling unsafe, severely disrupting her education and overall well-being.
The lawsuit states that she left traditional school and enrolled in homebound services from April 2024 to October 2025.
According to the lawsuit:
Prior to the attack and harassment, [our client] had been enrolled in gifted programming since kindergarten and consistently tested in the top one percent of students nationally for her age. As a result of the concussion, potential traumatic brain injury, and PTSD caused by [the school district’s] conduct, [our client] now struggles with academic tasks that were previously well within her abilities.
The lawsuit alleges that our client has suffered economic damage, pain and suffering, inconvenience, emotional distress, and impairment of her quality of life. According to the lawsuit, the school district’s actions and failures to act show a deliberate indifference and/or malice toward our client’s rights.
This case is ongoing.
For more information, contact attorney Sarah Jane Hunt at sarahjane@kennedyhuntlaw.com. If you or someone you know has been a victim of discrimination, our skilled attorneys at Kennedy Hunt, P.C. may be able to help you. Fill out a questionnaire so we can understand your claim.