ESCANABA, Mich. (WZMQ) – The Escanaba Area Public School District has closed an investigation into a claim that male students said the phrase “your body, my choice” to female students the day after the presidential election.
The phrase “your body, my choice” was first posted online by far-right pundit Nick Fuentes. An Escanaba high school parent—who wishes to remain anonymous—says her daughter told her that boys were saying it at school on November 6.
The parent took her frustration over the situation to Facebook, posting “Trending in Escanaba High School today: boys walking around telling the girls, ‘your body, my choice’ over and over. The effects of electing a rapist are immediate and all I can do is cry.”
That message was posted to the parent’s personal Facebook page and to a private, U.P.-wide group. She gave a group member permission to share the post, without her name, on TikTok. That’s where Superintendent Coby Fletcher says the school found the post.
“Usually, when we see these—it’s a fairly common thing—there’ll be a standard message but then they’ll substitute names of different schools,” Fletcher told WZMQ 19. “You begin checking with staff when you see things like that to find out whether they’re aware of anything that’s going on. We also went to our IT department to see if we could chase down where it was coming from.”
The IT department believed it was a generated post based outside of the area. Fletcher posted a statement saying the school was aware of the post and calling the claim “false.”
However, the parent says the president of the school board knew the post was hers and had reached out to her on Facebook. She says she also left two messages with Principal Andy Doutree, who she says told her the messages “got buried.”
“That right there doesn’t make sense to me either, because if he had so many messages that he couldn’t get to on his voicemail, how did they know that those weren’t other reports?” she said. “From my perspective, there was just a breakdown of communication and a rush to judgment… Coby talked to Andy, but Andy didn’t really have enough time to really understand the full scope of the situation… Nobody had heard my voicemail, and they jumped to a conclusion that unfortunately was incorrect.”
Although Fletcher took his statement down, he says it was not a retraction. Rather, he says it was a “courtesy” while the school moved forward with an internal investigation. The parent met with him about the letter, specifically the part saying the district “received no reports.”
“All I wanted to do was to have the public have the facts,” the parent told WZMQ 19. “Like, ‘Okay, we got new information. There was a report. We are looking into it.’ Instead, he kept that letter up… I came under fire. I’m still under fire.”
“That really is a fairly minor part of the issue,” said Fletcher. “The major part of the issue is that there’s an allegation going around that boys in our school, all day long, were going around telling girls, ‘your body, my choice’… As soon as we became aware of [these claims], we immediately began to investigate them. That, I think, is far more important that quibbling about a minor sentence in a letter that we put out.”
Through a Freedom of Information Act request, WZMQ 19 obtained a copy of the school district’s internal investigation, which included student interviews and reviews of surveillance footage. Fletcher says the student who heard the statement was “unable” to provide the name of a boy who might have said it.
“The individual informed us that what was said was not actually said to her but that it was heard,” Fletcher said. “Over the course of reviewing the video, the initial location that was identified ended up not being the location, so we went to a different location and followed the individual around. While a boy was identified as somebody who might possibly have said that, when school administration went to five students, I believe, that were in the immediate vicinity… every single one of them reported that nobody heard anything being said about ‘your body, my choice.'”
The school has closed its investigation, saying “no evidence exists” of the claim. However, the parent who made it stands by her child.
“Do I believe it happened? Yes,” she said. “Was the viral post an accurate portrayal of how it happened? Probably not, and I own that. If I could go back, I would word it differently, but that doesn’t change my belief that that happened and is happening in our schools all over the country.”
Both parties believe they acted in the best interest of the students.
“I think it’s regrettable that the rumor mill has gotten started,” Fletcher said. “We stay very busy looking into things that students bring to our attention, and we do it as quickly as we can because we know it’s important to provide an environment where our kids feel safe, they feel secure, they feel supported. I think we do a good job of that.”
“There are no winners in this situation,” said the parent. “There’s no enemy, but if there were, it would be the broken system that we’re using to deal with situations like this. I think that, ultimately, that’s a good thing and that’s a hopeful, helpful message because we can fix that together.”
For those with concerns about the words or actions of Escanaba Area Public Schools students, Fletcher says there are several ways to report them.
“Probably the most common is to reach out to an administrator,” he said. “We get these messages from parents by phone, and I would say very frequently these days by email. That’s a great way to know that it is going to go directly to somebody. Students also have an opportunity to use a form that’s out there that they can fill out confidentially… We also receive plenty of tips through OK2SAY. A student is also able to go find a trusted adult on campus that they can talk to and make that report.”
