Michigan's Grosse Pointe parent's LGBTQ flag video led to school ban. Now he's suing

DETROIT — A Grosse Pointe Public School System parent has sued the district after it issued him a no-trespass order for posting a video on social media criticizing LGBTQ flags hung at the middle school in September 2024, arguing the district violated his free speech rights.

The lawsuit, filed Monday in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan, alleged parent Gary Pruitt was wrongfully banned from the school and asked for the no-trespass order to be lifted, among other things.

"A foundational core of our Constitutional Republic is that the State cannot punish citizens for engaging in speech that is protected by the First Amendment," according to the lawsuit. "Just as citizens cannot be criminally punished for protected speech, a public school cannot retaliate against or punish speech that falls within the ambit of the First Amendment."

Superintendent Andrea Tuttle did not immediately respond Tuesday to a request for comment.

Pruitt saw the rainbow LGBTQ flags at a back-to-school night he attended in September 2024 at Parcells Middle School, according to the lawsuit. He later went back to the building and took video of one of the flags, then posted the video to a parent Facebook group with a voiceover calling the flag political, "extremely divisive" and intimidating.

"No authority figure, especially teachers, should be injecting controversial political statements into a classroom of children," Pruitt said in the voiceover. "This is a radical programming being forced upon children by adults. ... Do you want to continue to let these groomer teachers push their distorted world view upon your children and the views you raised them with?"

Then-Parcells Middle School Principal Jason Wesley sent an email to all parents with kids at Parcells Middle School, asking for input about the video and noting there would be an increased police presence at Parcells, "implying that Mr. Pruitt was somehow a threat to students and staff at the middle school," according to the lawsuit.

He was served with a no-trespass order on Oct. 21, 2024, that barred him from entering school property, despite him not causing any disruption or harassing or intimidating anyone at the school, according to the lawsuit.

"Defendants further retaliated, alienated, humiliated, and stigmatized Mr. Pruitt by publicly posting his photograph in the middle school office and publicly stating in writing that he was a trespasser and not allowed on school property," according to the lawsuit. "As a result of the posting of his picture and the statement, his child was stigmatized, ridiculed, and harassed by other children and individuals at the school. Other parents, students, and community members were able to observe and see the posting of his photograph and the statement at the school office in an attempt to publicly shame him for exercising his constitutionally protected free speech rights."

In its trespass letter, the district's attorneys said Pruitt intimidated the teacher whom he recorded sitting under the flag in his video. They also said the district received complaints from the staff and community members about the video, in particular, the reference to grooming.

"The complaints allege that your conduct is intimidating, harassing and defamatory," the attorneys wrote in the letter. "It has caused a substantial disruption to the educational environment in our District."

Pruitt said in the lawsuit he tried to talk to the vice principal, superintendent and school board about the flags after his initial visit to the school. The superintendent and School Board President Valarie St. John allegedly told him nothing was likely to change. In an email to St. John, Pruitt said he found it unacceptable "that adults are trying to indoctrinate children with these symbols of homosexuality."

St. John told him in an email, "I can assure you that none of our teachers have been forced to hang rainbow flags in their classrooms. If any teacher is indoctrinating children into any sexual orientation, please report that to the principal, as that would be inappropriate. However, if you are simply concerned that your child is seeing the colors of therainbow, I would suggest sending them with tinted sunglasses so they aren't subjected to the full spectrum. Michigan law requires that we protect our LGBTQ+ students."

Pruitt is seeking to rescind the no-trespass order, stop the district from enforcing the order and make district officials remove his photos from the district offices, have the district declare its actions were unconstitutional, make changes to policies so other parents aren't punished for similar acts and pay for attorney fees.

"The clear purpose and intent of Defendants’ actions described above was to intimidate Mr. Pruitt and others and to chill their speech if they disagreed with any action by GPPS," according to the lawsuit.

The U.S. Department of Justice began investigating in February whether three public school districts in Michigan — Detroit Public Schools Community District, Lansing School District and Godfrey-Lee Public Schools in the Grand Rapids area — have been teaching students about sexual orientation and gender ideology without parental consent.

The probe comes after the Michigan Board of Education in November passed new guidelines to help districts set curricula for a wide range of health topics, including gender identity and sexual orientation.

In February, Republican Michigan State Board of Education Nikki Snyder asked the federal government in a letter to investigate the Michigan Department of Education's policies regarding gender and sex education instruction. Snyder called the state Department of Education the "root problem in education" for creating policies that purportedly violate the Supreme Court's rulings, as well as an executive order by President Donald Trump that threatens to pull federal funding from schools that teach students about "gender ideology" without parental consent.

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