Glacier High Wrestling Lawsuit Headed for Trial in Missoula
The trial, which starts Monday, will rule on whether the district retaliated against the plaintiffs after they reported the sexual assault of wrestlers to the school district and police department.
By Mariah Thomas
One of several lawsuits against Kalispell Public Schools regarding the conduct of Glacier High School’s wrestling team in 2022 goes to trial in Missoula starting Monday, as Kirk and Clifford Nance’s attorneys will try to make the case to a jury that the school district retaliated against them after they reported instances of sexual assault and harassment on the wrestling team.
“From our perspective, the trial and the information that’s going to come forward is the most important part,” said Avery Field, an attorney with Bliven Law Firm representing the plaintiffs. “A verdict in plaintiffs’ favor in this case, I think, would be an important showing to the community that we need to pay closer attention to our schools and what’s going on in our schools; that we all have a responsibility to work together as a community to make sure that students are safe; and that we have to be vigilant about those placed in charge of our schools.”
He added his clients’ hope is that parents and students can feel safe to make reports of sexual harassment to the school district in the future.
The Nances’ case, originally filed in January of 2025, alleges the district took retaliatory action against Clifford Nance, who was on the wrestling team, and his father, Kirk Nance, after Kirk reported the sexual assault of wrestlers to the school district and police department.
The suit claims the school barred Kirk from observing Clifford’s wrestling practices after reporting the assault. It also details an incident at a hotel in Missoula where wrestling coaches accused Kirk of “interrogating” students. The incident ultimately ended in Kirk receiving a disorderly conduct charge, and the district trespassing him from school property.
Clifford, the suit claims, was removed from certain activities and spaces, that the amount and quality of coaching Clifford received decreased after his father reported the assault, and states the district opposed his request to transfer to Flathead High School’s wrestling team the following year.
The school district has previously said it views the Nances’ suit as a “parent issue, not a student issue.” When the lawsuit was originally filed last January, KPS superintendent Matt Jensen said Kirk Nance had “tried to interfere with our investigation and the regular operations of schools and programs,” and coaches and administrators had the “responsibility and right” to hold both students and Kirk Nance accountable for their actions. It has also adopted the posturing it appropriately disciplined wrestlers involved in the incident. Jensen in April doubled down on those sentiments in comments to the Beacon.
Field said at the trial, plaintiffs will aim to show the school district acted in a retaliatory manner. It will be a goal to show the Nances engaged in protected activity, experienced an adverse action, and that there was a causal link between the two. He added both direct and circumstantial evidence — like the time frame the school district’s actions occurred in — will be part of his clients’ argument.
“We do think that we have some direct evidence in this case,” Field said. “However, most cases like this fall on circumstantial evidence, which, from our perspective, there’s a bounty of circumstantial evidence in this case.”
The trial will be open to the public and will take place at the federal courthouse in Missoula, located at 201 E. Broadway St.
Proceedings are slated to wrap by Thursday afternoon, Field said, so the jury can deliberate and hand down a verdict ahead of June 19, which is a federal holiday. But Field said the timing of trials is notoriously unpredictable and that schedule could veer off-track as the week presses on.
A federal lawsuit separate from the Nances’ was filed by a parent in October 2023. It accused the school district’s administrators and athletics officials of failing to address the assault of the plaintiff’s son and permitting a culture of hazing and violence within the school’s wrestling team. That suit was dismissed for “lack of subject matter jurisdiction” in January of 2025.
Field’s firm is also representing a former athlete who filed a lawsuit against the district in January alleging fellow wrestlers sexually assaulted and harassed him in a Billings hotel room during a wrestling trip in 2022. That suit has a pretrial conference set for July 8 in Missoula.