Video of a father of a Baraboo High School graduate storming onto the stage at his daughter’s graduation ceremony to block a Black superintendent from shaking her hand has gone viral.
In the clip, the man runs onto the platform immediately after his daughter receives her diploma. As she walks down the line to shake the hands of several school officials, he grabs district Superintendent Rainey Briggs by his right arm and forcibly pushes him off the stage.
Sad day in Baraboo Wisconsin.
— Kid Riles (@kid_riles) June 5, 2024
This racist piece of shit dad pushes the black superintendent away, because he didn’t want his daughter to shake hands with a black man. fucking disgusting. pic.twitter.com/MUk0gy4b5K
School Board President Kevin Vodak, board members Gwynne Peterson, Katie Kalish, Amy DeLong and Baraboo High School Principal Steve Considine were also on stage at the time of the incident—Briggs being the sole Black school official on stage.
“That’s my daughter,” the man can be heard saying in the video.
Briggs can then be heard telling the man, “You better get up off me, man. Get away from me, bro,” as staff working the graduation and three Baraboo police officers step in.
The enraged father does not relent and tells the officials, “I don’t want her touching him.”
District spokesperson Hailey Wagner later confirmed that the unnamed parent had been referred to the Sauk County District Attorney’s Office for disorderly conduct.
“Our primary focus remains on celebrating the achievements of our graduates,” the district said in the statement. “We want to ensure that the significance of this milestone and the hard work of our students are not overshadowed by this unfortunate event. The evening celebrated their accomplishments, and we are incredibly proud of each of them.”
Correction: The photo of students doing salutes is the Class of 2019, not 2018, and was taken during their junior prom.
— Jules Suzdaltsev (@jules_su) November 12, 2018
Here is a higher resolution photo (which was apparently taken by one of the parents, and is on the parent's website as part of their collective prom photos.) pic.twitter.com/lkrFln9pyz
This is not the first time Baraboo has made national headlines for contentious reasons.
In November 2018, the school made headlines after a photo of a group of high school boys giving a Nazi salute circulated online. The students did not face any consequences as, according to Lori Mueller, the superintendent of the Baraboo School District, the district was “not in a position to punish the students for their actions” because of their First Amendment rights.
“We have worked very, very hard over the last six years to make Baraboo very inviting and very inclusive,” Mayor Mike Palm said on social media at the time. “Obviously, some of that has failed, based on this picture, so we have a lot of work to do.”
