We now have a court ruling in the sexual assault case in Loudoun, Virginia, which was first brought to light by the father of the victim first made famous by his photos of being hauled away, bloody-lipped from a raucous school board meeting in June. He spoke to Daily Wire and Fox raising a firestorm on the right that fueled the school board recall movement’s relentless attacks on the board over mask mandates, CRT, and transgender policies.
These issues were then seized by Virginia Republican and Trump-endorsed candidate Glenn Youngkin in the final days of his close gubernatorial race against Terry McAuliffe. But as The New York Times points out, the testimony and court ruling reveal craven political motives of Republicans to be a Big Lie with school board recall supporters fomenting a January 6 type outrage that overlooks the impact on the minors involved in favor of pushing an anti-trans, anti-school board message in an attempt to win the election.
This was not a case of a transgender or gender fluid boy attacking a girl in a school bathroom, a fear-mongering anti-trans trope alluded to by the victim’s father who first mentioned the boy may have been wearing a skirt. This was picked up and used by opponents of Loudoun’s transgender-inclusive Policy 8040. This state-mandated policy included the right for transgender people to use bathrooms and locker rooms that correspond with their identity. But this policy was enacted months after the attack, in a different school year.
Instead, as detailed in the Washington Post report on the court proceedings, the boy and girl knew each other. The were in different grades but shared a circle of friends. They had engaged in consensual sex more than once in the Stone Bridge High School bathroom, but in the May 28 incident, they met in the bathroom where the attack on the girl occurred. The only mention of a skirt was on the part of the defense attempting to explain the second assault charge as the boy trying to get up after someone else entered the bathroom and getting his watch stuck on his skirt as he tried to get up.
As voting continues in Loudoun County, people are still seeking the removal of school board members, despite their ire being fueled by misinformation. As reported earlier, the claims that the school board concealed information overlook the fact that school board members cannot speak publicly about ongoing investigations due to Title IX restrictions meant to protect the accused. Blaming the board for transferring the student overlooks the fact that transfers fall under the purview of the Title IX officer. And claims that Superintendent Ziegler lied about his knowledge about the first sexual assault were similar explained in his press conference following the initial firestorm.
Beyond the outcome of the upcoming election next week, the solution to the issue of how to handle incidents like this that occur on school property and involve minors is something that has to be looked at in more detail. At the most recent school board meeting, Ian Serotkin, a Loudoun School Board member, introduced an amendment that passed unanimously to give local school divisions more discretionary power to handle cases like this while still providing the necessary protections to victims and the student body.
A full video of the school board meeting is available here and below. Serotkin’s amendment and the discussion of it are especially illuminating because he asks the Loudoun County Title IX officer, who is present at the meeting, to walk through the general process of handling incidents on school property and the various interactions that should occur between the Sherrif’s office, the Title IX officer, and the school system. That section and the discussion are available at the 4:30:30 mark until 4:49:10.
A recent WTOP article quotes Superintendent Scott Ziegler from this same meeting and Loudoun County Sheriff Mike Chapman at odds over the Title IX reporting processes with Ziegler making a surprising claim that he has never received any criminal reports about students in his three years at Loudoun. Chapman denied that his office has dropped the ball. Nevertheless, WTOP reports the need to reform Title IX to address these circumstances involving minors is something Ziegler, the school board, Chapman, and the Biden Administration are invested in doing. It will require federal changes to Title IX to reform the obstacles Betsy Devos and the previous administration put in place. Putting school board members on recall notice does not achieve any of this.
That’s why it’s equally troubling that a newly released letter from the Chief Operations Officer at Loudoun County Public Schools obtained by a FOIA request by a school board member explaining why Sheriff Chapman, whose office participated in a series of meetings with the school board after the infamous June 22 meeting that resulted in several arrests after being called an unlawful assembly, eventually decided to withdraw law enforcement presence and protection from school board meetings after the June meeting.
The letter details Chapman’s reasons which seem to incorporate Right-wing talking points or at least take the side of the anti-school board voices. Chapman expressed concern about “optics” that made the Sherriff’s office look like it was depriving citizens of the right to free speech and that they were acting the part of the “bad guy” while the school board got to be “dismissive” of people it disagreed with. The two other most concerning reasons were mentions about threats made to Chapman and to law enforcement (with no mention of threats to school board members) and dredging up accusations about school board members and the creation of an anti-racist social media group, which law enforcement already investigated and dismissed.
Loudoun4All, a group made up of local parents with a real stake in these issues, released a recent statement detailing their concerns about the friction between the public school system and the sheriff's office, which they described as “toxic” in light of the letter's release. They’ve also suggested what they see as the best place to put the community’s focus for the sake of victims and for keeping all students safe.
The Virginia Elections will be decided one way or another in a few days. However, these lingering issues will still need to be addressed. It is concerning to this county that angry voices that refuse to understand and accept the complexity of Title IX issues and seek real solutions to keeping children safe in schools have influenced or cowed part of the system needed for reform, despite the fact that the people pushing this agenda only have winning in the next few days on their minds. They’ve also shown who they are willing to throw under the bus, from the superintendent and board unanimously seeking reform, to the victims of these attacks.
Want to do something about it?
Loudoun4All needs donations to help print flyers to confront school board disinformation outside polling places in Loudoun.