Loudoun County Public Schools (LCPS) has temporarily lifted its wrongful suspension of the two boys who asked, “Why is there a girl in the boys locker room?”
Founding Freedoms Law Center, which represents the boys and their families, won the reprieve on Tuesday after formally disputing the district’s conclusion that the boys’ efforts to protect their privacy constitute sexual harassment and sex-based discrimination.
The 10-day suspension will be delayed until LCPS’ adjudicates the appeal, which means the student who remains in Loudoun County can start school on August 25 with his peers.
The other victim no longer lives in the state. His family moved to North Dakota to escape LCPS’ judgement.
Josh Hetzler, Senior Legal Counsel at Founding Freedoms, doesn’t expect the break to last.
“At every point along the way, LCPS has made it clear, frankly, that they were going to find these boys guilty,” he spoke plainly at yesterday’s press conference.
“So we don’t expect them to do the right thing — though we hope they do.”
If LCPS refuses to acquit the boys, Hetzler promises Founding Freedoms will take the district to court.
The boys are the latest in a long line of students and teachers victimized by policy 8040, the district’s policy equating “gender identity,” a person’s subjective feeling of being male or female, with biological sex.
Policy 8040 effectively eliminates single-sex spaces. Students can use whichever bathroom or locker room aligns with their “gender identity.” Critics of the policy can be accused of “sex discrimination.”
In 2021, under policy 8040, a “gender fluid” boy in a skirt sexually assaulted a fifteen-year-old-girl in the girl’s bathroom. LCPS subsequently tried to hide the attack, threw the victim’s father out of a school board meeting and transferred the perpetrator to another high school, where he offended again.
LCPS’ history with legitimate, atrocious Title IX violations makes its allegations of sexual harassment and sex-based discrimination against the boys seem particularly laughable.
Per Hetzler:
[It] was all confined to speech among boys — never directed at the girl — inside the locker room. [It included] asking questions like, “Why is there a girl in the locker room?” and [making statements like,] “Hey, there’s a girl in the locker room.”
That’s the extent of it.
The boys’ actions aren’t in the ballpark of harassment or discrimination. But Renee Smith, the mother of the victim who lives in North Dakota, says the label itself is damaging, regardless of its veracity.
“Loudoun County Public Schools branded my son with one of the most damaging labels you can put on a young man — sexual harassment,” a proxy read from Smith’s remarks Wednesday.
“And for what? Referring to a biological girl as a girl? That’s not harassment, that’s truth.”
Smith continued:
The damage is already done. That false label will follow [my son], threatening his reputation and his mental and emotional wellbeing.
Happily, LCPS may not get away with its treatment of these boys. On Tuesday, the Department of Education (DoEd) came down on LCPS and four other Virginia school districts for repeatedly and willfully violating Title IX.
The order put LCPS and its compatriots on “reimbursement only” status while DoEd works to terminate the districts’ annual federal funding, totaling some $50 million.
That means the district will get no more federal money up front. Instead, it has to pay its own bills and submit them for reimbursement.
The DoEd is also investigating LCPS’ treatment of the boys.
“I’ve been informed by the Department of Education that they have opened a formal investigation over [this] case,” Hetzler confirmed Wednesday.
The case is ongoing.
LCPS’ has terrorized parents and students for years. The Daily Citizen fervently hopes its reign of terror will soon come to an end.
Additional Articles and Resources
Poetic Justice: Virginia school district loses federal funding day after bogus suspension.
Loudoun County Schools Defy Education Department Over Multiple Title IX Violations
DoEd Finds Northern Virginia School Districts Violated Title IX
Irate Parents Excoriate Loudoun County Schools Superintendent and Board Over Sexual Abuse Coverup
Virginia School District Ignores Parents’ Opposition, Implements ‘Gender Identity’ Lessons
‘Equipping Parents For Back-To-School’ – Updated Resource Empowers Parents
Department of Education Launches Multiple Investigations Into Title IX Violations
Department of Education: Schools Embracing DEI Will Lose Funding
Department of Justice Launches Title IX Task Force to Protect Women’s Sports
New Education Secretary Linda McMahon: ‘Send Education to the States’
Trump Signs Executive Order Protecting Women’s Sports and Spaces
