A Wisconsin Mom Was Threatened With a Lawsuit After Speaking Up for Her Disabled Daughter

Wisconsin mom Amanda Vogel objected to the way her daughter's school treated the girl, who is wheelchair bound, during a musical program. While the program happened in 2023, Vogel shared the video to social media late last year as the reason why she decided to homeschool.

It's something millions of people do every single day. But the Pittsville School District didn't like that and threatened Vogel with legal action if she didn't remove the video from her social media accounts.

WTF. The School District of Pittsville, Wisconsin, threatened a mother with a defamation lawsuit and police after she criticized the school for allegedly sidelining her disabled daughter during a school music program.

No school should be trying to silence parents who speak out… https://t.co/vsytwqj5ZK
— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) January 16, 2026

Here's more:

A Wisconsin school district called the local police on a mom who posted a viral TikTok video of her wheelchair-bound daughter being separated from her peers during a choir concert, The Post has learned.
Cops showed up at Amanda Vogel’s home twice last year before the School District of Pittsville, about 130 miles west of Green Bay, sent her a cease-and-desist letter accusing her of defamation in a pressure campaign to get her to remove the viral post.
“Parents don’t surrender their constitutional rights when they speak about their children’s education, and shouldn’t have to respond to law enforcement at their home for a social media post like this,” Cory Brewer, an attorney for the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty (WILL) representing Vogel, told The Post.
Vogel had recorded her daughter being left on the sidelines while her classmates were given active roles.
While the incident took place in 2023, Vogel posted the video on TikTok this past December to voice disgust at how her daughter was treated by her school.
“Watching her be placed off to the side while her peers stood together, and realizing no one noticed before the concert, was it for us,” Vogel captioned the video. “The solution was so simple. A row on the floor that included her.”

“If something this visible was going unnoticed, what else was being missed when we weren’t around?”

Please be advised that Renning, Lewis, & Lacy s.c., by the undersigned attorney,represents the School District of Pittsville (“District”). I am writing you on behalfof the District regarding your recent harassing and defamatory post on TikTok,which has resulted in millions of views and thousands of comments – many of themthreatening and disturbing. Your post includes the faces of several staff membersand sufficient information that members of our community have identified you andyour child as residents of the District.
The District has an obligation to maintain the safety of all students, staff, andcommunity members present on our property for legitimate purposes. Indeed, as aWisconsin public school district, we have the responsibility to maintain aneducational atmosphere, to protect educators, support staff, property, and, mostimportant, to preserve the safety and well-being of our students who are present tolearn.
We have reached out to you through local law enforcement to request that youremove the TikTok video. You initially agreed to remove the video, but did notfollowed through until after several hours and a second visit with the Police Chief.
Due to your conduct, the District hereby demands that you cease and desist fromengaging in any additional harassing and intimidating behavior toward Districteducators and support staff.
The District will keep us apprised whether you comply with the above demands. Ifyou ignore these demands, the District will report your conduct to law enforcementand explore pursuing appropriate legal action against you, which includes, but isnot limited to, seeking a court order prohibiting you from continuing to defame theDistrict and recovering damages related thereto.
Be further advised that I have also informed District staff of their right to pursue appropriate legalaction on their own behalf, in regard to your harassment and defamatory comments.

WILL, in turn, sent a letter to the law firm on behalf of Vogel, and here's some of what it says:

We represent Amanda Vogel. She has sent us your letter dated December 19, 2025,which you sent on behalf of the School District of Pittsville. We are sending you thisletter as a rejection of your unlawful demand that Ms. Vogel cease and desist fromexercising her rights under the First Amendment.
First, we find your letter odd as coming from an attorney. You claim in the letter thatMs. Vogel defamed someone, although you don’t say who. You say that words in apost she made on TikTok were defamatory, but you never identify the words. Finally,you do not cite any cases that would show that anything that she said was defamatoryunder Wisconsin law.
Your reticence and ambiguities make your letter hard to respond to, perhapsintentionally so, but we will do our best.
First, let’s deal with the lack of an actual plaintiff. In your letter, you say that yourepresent the School District of Pittsville. We assume you know that under the FirstAmendment, the school district, as a governmental body, cannot make a claim fordefamation. It was recognized in New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254, 299,84 S.Ct. 710, 11 L. Ed. 2d 686 (1964) that “prosecutions for libel on government have (no) place in the American system of jurisprudence.”
In fact, the First Amendment is not only a shield here for Ms. Vogel’s opinions about how the school district treated her daughter (which will be discussed below) but canalso be a sword to defend her right of free speech. As a governmental body, the SchoolDistrict of Pittsville violated her First Amendment rights by sending the police to herdoor to tell her to stop speaking in public about the district (which will also be discussed further below) and by hiring you to send a letter intended to intimidate her.
Second, you have not identified anything that she said in her post that wasdefamatory under Wisconsin law. In her TikTok post, she has a short video of herdaughter sitting in her wheelchair separately from the other children in her classduring a music program, and then she says as follows:
We did not plan to homeschool.
We tried our best to set up a good foundation for her to be successful and included at school.
Unfortunately, there is only so much parents can do ontheir end. Watching her be placed off to the side while her peers stood together, and realizing no one noticed before the concert, was it for us. If something this visible was going unnoticed, what else was being missed when we weren’t around?
#inclusionmatters #inclusiveeducation #homeschooljourney #parentingmoment
Her post was quite simple. She believes her daughter was excluded from a schoolprogram because her daughter is disabled. In her opinion, that was mean andperhaps indicative of other instances of exclusion of which she was unaware. As a ...result, she was going to consider homeschooling her daughter.
Can you please tell us which of the words in that post you claim to be defamatoryunder Wisconsin law? If you do not, we will assume that you cannot, because none of the words are actually defamatory.

WILL Deputy Counsel Cory Brewer, who was featured in the video, said, "After the mother posted the video and said she was considering homeschooling her daughter because of what happened, police showed up at her doorstep. She was asked to take the video down. And then the district hired an attorney to threaten her with a defamation lawsuit simply for speaking about what happened to her child."

"Parents have the right to speak up for their children. Using legal threats to silence a parent is outrageous," Brewer continued. "That's why the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty is stepping in to defend her First Amendment rights."

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