How Loudoun Schools Got Caught in Virginia’s Political Maelstrom
Loudoun County tried to address racism and promote diversity within its schools. Then it found itself on Fox News.LEESBURG, Va. — Long before the father was tackled by sheriff’s deputies at the school board meeting, before there was shouting to reopen classrooms and before “parents matter” became the central slogan of the most closely watched campaign in the post-Trump era, Loudoun County was just another American suburbia taking a hard look at its schools.The county, at the edge of the Virginia sprawl outside Washington, had grown much more diverse. White students were no longer in the majority, and educators were trying to be more aware of how racism could affect their students’ education.The district hired a consulting firm to help train teachers about bias. It tried to hire more teachers of color. And a high school changed its mascot from the Raiders, named for a Confederate battalion, to the Captains.But there were rumblings of resistance.Vocal parents protested the district’s antiracism efforts as Marxism.Some teachers disliked the trainings, which they found ham-handed and over the top.And evangelical Christians objected to a proposal to give transgender students access to the restrooms of their choice — complaints that were magnified when a male student wearing a skirt was arrested in an assault in a girl’s bathroom.Loudoun County High School changed its mascot from the Raiders, a nod to a Confederate battalion, to the Captains, in 2020.Jason Andrew for The New York TimesWithin a year, Loudoun County had become the epicenter of conservative outrage over education. Several hundred parents, in a district of 81,000 students, managed to pummel their school board and become a cause célèbre for opposing the district’s handling of race and gender issues.Along the way, they got plenty of help from Republican operatives, who raised money and skillfully decried some of the district’s more aggressive efforts, even buying an ad during an N.F.L. game.The media also jumped in, feeding the frenzy. The story rebounded from one outlet to another, with conservative media leading the way, from The New York Post to The Daily Wire to Fox News, which aired 78 segments on the racial issues at Loudoun schools from March to June this year, according to Media Matters, a left-leaning group that scrutinizes media coverage.By November, these skirmishes had been transformed into a potent political movement — parents’ rights — that engulfed the state’s schools and the governor’s race. The Republican candidate, Glenn Youngkin, successfully tapped into the fury, adopting the slogan “parents matter.”“Glenn became a vessel for their anger,” said Jeff Roe, the founder of Axiom Strategies, Mr. Youngkin’s campaign consultant.Glenn Youngkin tapped into the fury over schools, with the slogan “parents matter.”Pete Marovich for The New York TimesThe campaign identified early on, he said, that education was a key issue that could make inroads in Democratic strongholds. Mr. Youngkin’s opponent, the former governor Terry McAuliffe, won Loudoun County, but by a far narrower margin than President Joe Biden had won last year.Ian Prior, a Republican political operative who lives in the county and has been at the center of the fight, called education the “one unifying issue out there that kind of gets everybody.”Now, Republicans and Democrats are dissecting how these educational issues can be used in the midterm elections next year.Loudoun may well be their case study.A District, Struggling With ChangeIn the not-too-distant past, Loudoun County was dominated by farmers and Republicans. In recent years it has experienced a wave of residential growth to 420,000 people, becoming more suburban, increasingly diverse and, at the same time, more liberal.The student body has changed, too. Twenty five years ago, 84 percent of the students were white; today, 43 percent are, owing partly to an influx of immigrants working in technology jobs. Currently, 7.2 percent of students are Black.The shift hasn’t been easy. In 2019, for example, an elementary school asked students, including a Black student, to emulate runaway slaves during a game mimicking the Underground Railroad, drawing criticism from the local NAACP.Parents also said they encountered racist treatment, both subtle and overt. Zerell Johnson-Welch, who is Black and Latina, moved to the district in 2008 with her husband and three children.One day, her daughter came home upset, she said.“She was in an advanced math class,” Ms. Johnson-Welch said. “A kid yelled out, ‘Why are you in this class?’” — using a racial epithet to emphasize that she did not belong.Loudoun County commissioned a study by a consulting firm, the Equity Collaborative, which bore out such stories, concluding that Black, Hispanic and Muslim students had been the focus of racial slurs and that Black students were disciplined more frequently than others.Members of the Loudoun County NAACP and the Loudoun Freedom Center called for the school board to address racial equity concerns at a news conference in 2019.Patrick Szabo/Loudoun NowLoudoun set out on a plan. In addition to changing the high school mascot, the school system released a video apologizing to Black residents for past racial discrimination. The schools devised a protocol for dealing with racial slurs and other hate speech. And teachers underwent training in cultural sensitivity.There was backlash.Some teachers objected to a chart in their training that listed different groups as either “experiences privilege” or “experiences oppression.” Christians were privileged, for instance, while non-Christians were oppressed.Monica Gill, an American history teacher at Loudoun County High School, also objected to an animated video called “The Unequal Opportunity Race,” in which white people get a head start, while people of color must wait and then face obstacle after obstacle.The video, she said, was an overgeneralization that itself embraced a racial stereotype.“I didn’t grow up in white privilege,” Ms. Gill said. “I worked hard to get through college, and it wasn’t handed to me by any stretch. It seemed to me that this whole thing they were pushing was very shallow.”Mr. Prior, a former Trump administration official with two children in the district, wrote a piece in October 2020 for The Federalist, a conservative outlet, in which he raised questions about what he called the “supercharged” antiracism effort..css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-1kpebx{margin:0 auto;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1kpebx{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-1gtxqqv{margin-bottom:0;}.css-19zsuqr{display:block;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}.css-12vbvwq{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-12vbvwq{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-12vbvwq:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-qjk116{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-qjk116 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-qjk116 em{font-style:italic;}.css-qjk116 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:visited{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}But Beth Barts, a former school board member, said the effort was worth it.“Whites are now less than half our student population,” she said. “It was important that we recognize that, and we teach that other voices should also have a place at the table.”Some people don’t like that, she added. “They felt threatened.”Parents and community members at a Loudoun County School Board meeting in June.Evelyn Hockstein/ReutersThe pandemic did not help ease anxiety. The state’s schools were slow to reopen, and parents became increasingly agitated, concerned that virtual learning was harming their children, academically and emotionally.At a school board meeting in January 2021, Brandon Michon, a father of three, lined up with about 50 other parents to argue that in-person classes needed to resume.“You should all be fired from your day jobs,” Mr. Michon practically yelled into the microphone. “Figure it out or get off the podium.”His diatribe went viral, with an assist from Fox News, where he became a repeat guest. Weeks later, Mr. Prior learned that his name had been placed on what he viewed as a sort of “enemies list” by a Facebook group called “Anti-Racist Parents of Loudoun County,” he said in an interview.The list, he said recently, led him to form Fight for Schools, a political action committee.Mr. Prior promoted his cause nationally, becoming a frequent guest on Fox News, including “Tucker Carlson Tonight.”Mr. Prior also began efforts to recall several school board members, including Ms. Barts, a former school librarian who had joined the Facebook group.By May 2021, Mr. Prior’s political action committee had launched an ad that referred to the teacher training materials, warning that Loudoun schools were instructing teachers that Christians are oppressors.Ian Prior, a conservative operative, speaking to parents during a recent rally outside of the Loudoun County Public School offices in Ashburn, Va.Jason Andrew for The New York TimesTeachers and administrators said that conservative activists had cherry-picked the most extreme materials to try to prove their point, but some educators also acknowledged that some of the training was over the top, including the “experiences oppression” chart. A spokesman for Loudoun County schools said that chart is no longer used.Many teachers are also quick to defend the training. One of them, Andrea Weiskopf, said that part of the idea was to raise awareness that students from different backgrounds could perceive literature and events differently.Understand the Debate Over Critical Race TheoryCard 1 of 5An expansive academic framework. More