Education · Statewide · WI · August 15, 2026
WI Educator Sues School, Alleging Firing for Being Gay
What Alinsky tactic is being used
3 of the thirteen rules are in play here — campaigns rarely run just one.
Rule 13
“Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.”
The complaint at the center of this story describes the classic sequence run against one named man: a flyer distributed around an August 28, 2023 Village of Raymond meeting that blames Peterson by name and calls on the public to "take our school back," and an anonymous letter circulated on thumb drives accusing him of grooming children. One employee was picked out, frozen as the face of everything disputed in the district, and made the thing people were for or against — the school board election, the curriculum fight, and the man all collapsed into one target. Whether the allegations are proved is for the Eastern District of Wisconsin to decide, but the pattern the complaint describes is rule 13 with the serial numbers still on it.
Counter-Rule 13 · Radical Solidarity
Stand publicly with whoever has been singled out. Isolation is the whole mechanism; refusing it disarms the tactic.
Counter-Rule 13 is uncomfortable here because the people alleged to have run the tactic are on the side many readers sit on — which is exactly when it counts. This month: refuse to forward or repeat an anonymous accusation about any named employee, in your district or your church, and say so plainly if one reaches your inbox. If you have a substantive objection to a school leader, put it in writing under your own name, on a noticed agenda, and let it be answered.
Rule 11
“If you push a negative hard and deep enough, it will break through into its counterside.”
The negative pushed hardest in this story is the word "groomer." The complaint alleges that a 100-plus page public-records packet was cut down to a targeted 36 pages, that material favorable to Peterson was removed before release, and that the trimmed set went out with an anonymous grooming letter attached. That is the overclaim mechanism precisely: a real dispute about a principal's conduct pushed past what the record supports until it becomes a criminal-sounding charge — and if it fails in court, every genuine concern raised in Raymond fails with it.
Counter-Rule 11 · Proportional Truth
Refuse to overclaim, even where it would help. One exaggeration hands the other side the only weapon that works permanently.
Proportional Truth starts at home with this alert. The headline said only "educator" and "school"; the action items assumed a Christian school, a statement of faith, and a doctrinal firing — none of which exist here, since Raymond School District No. 14 is a public pre-K-8 district. Before you repeat this story, read the WPR piece and the complaint, and correct anyone in your circle who is describing it as a religious-liberty case. When you object to something a school does, claim only what you can show from the record.
Rule 4
“Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules.”
Peterson's suit turns the district's own procedural book back on it: the complaint points to a board retreat attended by most members, the superintendent, and a former board candidate for which no public notice was given, and to a September 27, 2023 board meeting closed to the public and broadcast by video instead. A board that keeps its own open-meeting and personnel procedures cleanly has far less to answer for; a board that does not hands the other side its best exhibits.
Counter-Rule 4 · Radical Integrity
Close the gap between stated values and actual practice before anyone else finds it. This tactic only works where the gap is real.
Radical Integrity here is dull and specific: pull the last six months of agendas, notices, and minutes for your own school board or church board and check that every personnel action appears on a noticed agenda with a recorded tally, and that no retreat or workshop conducted business without notice. Where you find a gap, raise it with the clerk in writing before an opponent finds it. Refuse to participate in any off-agenda gathering where a named employee's future is discussed.
Chapter 3 sets out the rules; Chapter 15 answers each of them in turn. This is that pairing applied to this story.
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