A father rushed the stage during a Baraboo, Wisconsin, high school graduation. As his daughter approached Superintendent Rainey Briggs to shake his hand after receiving her diploma, the father pushed Briggs out of the way. A minor scuffle ensued on stage. The father was ushered out a police report was filed. The daughter can be seen with a look of bewilderment in the now-viral video. There were a lot of assumptions made about the incident due to the father being white and the Superintendent being black.
Baraboo, Wisconsin, is no stranger to incidents that have been labeled racist or racially charged. A 2018 photo of a Baraboo graduating class shows several white students raising the Nazi salute. No disciplinary action was taken against them, and the reason was that they were exercising their First Amendment right to free speech. Local citizens of the small Wisconsin town are furious at the assertion that they are a racist place, according to postings on their community Facebook pages.
Police interviewed the father and Superintendent Briggs at the scene of the incident. Briggs says that he does not know the father. There was one instance of disciplinary action taken against the daughter during her school career, and that’s it. The father says that he and his daughter did not like Briggs and that he did not want her to touch his daughter. Reports cite a lack of enforcement against bullying in the school as another reason why Briggs may have been a target of the father. There was no mention of racism by either side.
SOURCES:
Dad Pushes Black Superintendent During Daughter’s Graduation – YouTube
BoreCure on X: “Matt Eddy, the father who disrupted his daughter’s graduation at Baraboo High School, cited past issues with Superintendent Rainey Briggs as the reason for his actions. Eddy was charged with disorderly conduct, and Briggs obtained a restraining order against him. https://t.co/JSNibPTEkP” / X
Baraboo police report shines light on why a parent says he pushed the superintendent during graduation
