Scott Smith, the father of the victim who was assaulted in the girls' bathroom, told reporters that the perpetrator was a “gender fluid” student wearing a skirt.
This became particularly fraught – even becoming a talking point in Congress – after recent reports of two sexual assaults at Loudoun schools.Ĭonservatives have gained power on school boards: Here's what happened next.
Battle over critical race theory, gender-inclusive bathroomsĪmid school board chaos across the country, Loudoun has become particularly prickly, as Youngkin and McAuliffe argue about so-called critical race theory, the potential banning of books like Toni Morrison’s “Beloved” and how to navigate COVID-19 protocols in schools.Īnother major point of contention: The school's equity initiatives include a recently adopted policy allowing transgender students to use the bathroom matching their gender identity. “There is, unfortunately, a strategic effort by both candidates to weaponize parent anxieties,” he said, ranging from school curriculum to student safety. The pandemic, according to Kogan, fueled the growing wave of school board-related activism. Loudoun, whose district was one of the last in the nation to desegregate, has diversified in recent decades, helping to drive Virginia’s evolution into a purple state. Loudoun is “exactly the kind of place where you have two groups of people with really strong feelings,” said Vladimir Kogan, a political science professor at Ohio State University who’s studied school board politics. School districts have become America’s latest political battleground, with conservatives frequently waging war over diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives that many districts adopted in the wake of George Floyd’s murder and the country’s most recent racial reckoning. Loudoun County, home of the nation's highest median household income, has become a tinderbox: Meetings have spiraled into violence, accusations of student sexual assault are dominating headlines, and some parents have sued the school board over the district’s equity initiatives.ĭemocrat Terry McAuliffe is set to square off against Republican Glenn Youngkin in what’s become a bitter referendum on school board controversies across the country. Now, the fallout from those initiatives, and the heavily criticized school board that authorized them, is at the crux of one of the country's highest-profile gubernatorial races. He won 37% of the vote in Bogota, and lost the state.Earlier this year, Loudoun County Public Schools, a Virginia district in the suburbs of Washington, released a plan to make its campuses more equitable and inclusive, following a nationwide trend. “They run another fine gentleman, Tom Kean, Jr., for Senate. He got 33% of the vote in Bogota, and lost New Jersey,” said Lonegan. They said we have a fine gentleman named Dick Zimmer. “They tell me that a conservative Republican cannot win statewide-that we must run moderates in every single election. Lonegan used his speech to decry the past statewide failures of the moderate Republicans while noting that he consistently won reelection as mayor of a heavily Democratic town. “By the time I’m done with him, Jon Corzine is going to have to spend so much defending his record that he’s going to have to live in one of those COAH units.” I’ll take it whatever they can dish out in this primary, because that’s going to prepare us for the big game come October, when Jon Corzine is going to go so negative you won’t believe it,” said Lonegan. If you think I’m running a negative campaign, that’s nothing. “I’ve been told that I run a negative campaign.