WASHINGTON — A Wisconsin faculty district known as the native police on a mother who posted a viral TikTok video of her wheelchair-bound daughter being separated from her friends throughout a choir live performance, The Put up has discovered.
Cops confirmed up at Amanda Vogel’s house twice final 12 months earlier than the College District of Pittsville, about 130 miles west of Inexperienced Bay, despatched her a stop and desist letter accusing her of defamation in a strain marketing campaign to get her to take away the viral publish.
“Dad and mom don’t give up their constitutional rights after they discuss their youngsters’s training, and shouldn’t have to answer legislation enforcement at their house for a social media publish like this,” Cory Brewer, an legal professional for the Wisconsin Institute for Regulation & Liberty (WILL) representing Vogel, informed The Put up.
Vogel had recorded her daughter being left on the sidelines whereas her classmates got lively roles.
Whereas the incident befell in 2023, Vogel posted the video on TikTok this previous December to voice disgust at how her daughter was handled by her faculty.
“Watching her be positioned off to the facet whereas her friends stood collectively, and realizing nobody seen earlier than the live performance, was it for us,” Vogel captioned the video. “The answer was so easy. A row on the ground that included her.”
“If one thing this seen was going unnoticed, what else was being missed once we weren’t round?”
The video has attracted greater than 11.6 million views and triggered an avalanche of shock in opposition to the district.
Vogel briefly modified the video from public to personal in response to officers’ objections, however has since reversed course.
WILL fired again on Vogel’s behalf with a letter formally rejecting its Dec. 19, 2025, stop and desist calls for and informing it that she is mulling “her subsequent steps in defending her proper to free speech.”
“Our understanding, and we haven’t heard again but from the legal professional who we despatched the letter to, is that the district was involved about a number of the feedback on the publish and after it went viral,” Brewer defined.
The stop and desist letter, which was obtained by The Put up, acknowledged that Vogel had acquired two visits from Pittsville’s chief of police.
“Based mostly on what we all know, the involvement of legislation enforcement was prompt by the varsity district legal professional and was not a response to any direct menace to security,” Brewer revealed.
“We assume you realize that beneath the First Modification, the varsity district, as a governmental physique, can’t make a declare for defamation,” WILL wrote in its Thursday response, which Brewer co-signed.
“As a governmental physique, the College District of Pittsville violated [Vogel’s] First Modification rights by sending the police to her door to inform her to cease talking in public in regards to the district.”
WILL famous that whereas Vogel felt the police chief was “well mannered {and professional}” through the two visits, she “would recognize an apology if one had been freely supplied however doesn’t need one that’s given grudgingly.”
Brewer revealed that that is the third occasion the place WILL has responded to a faculty district that despatched a stop and desist letter to oldsters.
Vogel has since opted to homeschool her daughter.
The lawyer who despatched the stop and desist letter from the College District of Pittsville, representatives from the district, and the Pittsville Police Division didn’t instantly reply to requests for remark.
