Loudoun County school culture war blowup fuels Virginia governor’s race
The Loudoun County Public Schools building recently was the site of a heated board meeting protest over transgender policy and critical race theory, which resulted in an arrest.
This week, the exurban Washington, D.C., schools center was the backdrop for Virginia Republican gubernatorial nominee Glenn Youngkin as he announced the first phase of his education plan.
Rallying with parents and educators who have long battled with the school board, Youngkin called the county and pledged to issue an executive order banning the teaching of critical race theory on his first day in office, protect advanced math classes, and appoint a new secretary of education.
“The classroom is not the place for a political agenda,” Youngkin said. “Our children should not be the victims of the left-liberal progressives’ cultural war.”
It was the most blatant sign yet of how culture war issues are defining Republican political strategy in the competitive gubernatorial race as well as among Republicans nationwide.
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Critical race theory started as an academic framework with Marxist roots for examining racism and has become a descriptor for curriculum and policies that frame individuals and society through the lens of race and oppressors. At least five states have signed bills into law restricting how teachers can discuss racism or sexism in class with the aim of prohibiting critical race theory, according to EdWeek, and more than a dozen other federal and state anti-critical race theory proposals have been introduced.
Youngkin, a first-time candidate who was previously co-CEO of the Carlyle Group private equity firm, insisted that his focus and attention on the hot-button school issues is not a purely political strategy.
“I think about what’s right and what’s wrong and what solutions we have,” Youngkin told the Washington Examiner in an interview Wednesday. “And that’s a real difference between me and my opponent,” former Democratic Gov. Terry McAuliffe, who is seeking a second, nonconsecutive term, “because he’ll say anything to anybody that he needs to say in order to get a vote.”
Youngkin’s leaning into the issue, though, is encouraging to those who have long pushed conservative politicians to make social issues core to their electoral strategy.
“Critical race theory stuff, the gender ideology, the boys and girls sports, all of that has awoken a sleeping giant,” said Terry Schilling, executive director of the American Principles Project. “These types of issues only work in politics when politicians lead on them, when they take the reins and take charge and make them a political issue. There’s been a lot of movements that have been snuffed out in the past where there’s a lot of public support for it among the voters and the people, but politicians won’t take up, and so it goes nowhere.”
A Politico/Morning Consult poll this month suggested that voters nationwide who are opposed to teaching critical race theory in schools had stronger opinions than those who supported it: 29% strongly opposed and 7% somewhat opposed, compared to 16% strongly supporting and 16% somewhat supporting critical race theory being taught.
Aside from being the most competitive gubernatorial race this year, Virginia’s November election could swing at least one of the state legislative chambers back to Republican control. If Republicans are successful in the state, it could provide a blueprint for Republicans in the 2022 midterm elections.
But the focus on divisive cultural issues could be a risk for Youngkin in Virginia, a state that has not elected a Republican for statewide office since 2009.
“I do wonder if that is the right approach in a place like Northern Virginia, a rapidly changing area that has become a lot more Democratic in recent years and where hard-edged Republican cultural messaging may very well go too far,” said Kyle Kondik, managing editor of Sabato’s Crystal Ball at the University of Virginia Center for Politics. “Youngkin faces the challenge of trying to identify and critique progressive excesses in schools but not sounding like Dick Black while he’s doing it.”
So far, McAuliffe has tried to brush off the culture war school issue and recently called critical race theory a “right-wing conspiracy” that has been “made up by Donald Trump and Glenn Youngkin.”
Youngkin scoffed at that. “The absolute structure of critical race theory has been in fact reflected in curriculum,” he told the Washington Examiner. “Terry doesn’t listen to parents. He doesn’t care about what parents think. He’s completely disconnected from what’s going on in our schools completely. And oh, by the way, that’s reflective of somebody who lowered standards and then watched our children’s academic performance decline.”
Loudoun County has become “ground zero for the fight to return our schools to a curriculum that prepares students for the future,” as Youngkin put it. Last week, parents and activists in Northern Virginia flooded a Loudoun County school board meeting over transgender policy and critical race theory.
At issue in the meeting was proposed Policy 8040, which, in part, requires staff to use students’ preferred gender pronouns and allows students to use bathroom and locker room facilities that correspond with their gender identity. The policy was drafted to comply with a state-level law passed last year that requires local school boards to adopt policies that are “are consistent with but may be more comprehensive than” state-level Department of Education model policies on transgender students.
“There are solutions to actually allow all of our children to feel safe and to be accepted. And I think those solutions actually haven’t been found yet,” Youngkin said when asked about the transgender policy. “We’re jamming through solutions that haven’t really been thought through.”
The meeting came on the heels of a Virginia court ruling that Loudoun County elementary school teacher Tanner Cross be reinstated after objecting to using transgender students’ preferred pronouns, and the school district stating its intent to appeal the decision to the Virginia Supreme Court.
Public commenters railed against the proposed policy and treatment of Cross, while also adding in criticisms of what they described as “critical race theory” in the school system. Board members eventually cut off debate, enraging the rowdy crowd, and one man was arrested after refusing to leave.
Youngkin said that the incident was “a reflection of the emotion that people have” about the issue but wished “people would just not actually take themselves to that position. … We have to stay within the law.” But he maintained that the board members “mismanaged” the meeting and that the rules they set up were “childish.”
Loudoun County Schools Interim Superintendent Scott Ziegler has repeatedly said that the district does not teach critical race theory, but activists point to state regulations signed into law earlier this year that direct the Department of Education to require those with teaching licenses to pass evaluations in “cultural competency.”
The issue is not limited to Loudoun. The week before the Loudoun blowup, nine speakers protested critical race theory at a Williamsburg-James City County Public Schools meeting and called on the board members to declare a position on the theory.
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While McAuliffe says Youngkin is embracing a conspiracy, other Democrats in the state are accusing him of putting defenders of the controversial policies in danger.
“Youngkin and his political allies should stop playing politics with our students’ education,” Loudoun County School Board Vice Chairwoman Atoosa Reaser said in a Virginia Democratic Party press conference on Wednesday. “The use of our students and families as political pawns is despicable. The threats of violence against school board members is horrific and real.”
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