Could a School-Board Fight Over Critical Race Theory Help Turn Virginia Red?
Weve been able to capture some of the energy out there thats been frustrated with the direction of the schools out here and a variety of issues, said Ian Prior, founder of the group Fight For Schools, one of the foremost parent groups against critical race theory in Loudoun County. Prior said the group has secured more than 10,000 signatures in this effortmore than half of the 17,300 needed to bring the recall before a judge. Yet, despite its changing demographics, Loudoun County remains in many ways a relic of Virginias Jim Crow past, integrating its schools more than a decade after the 1954 Supreme Court ruling, Brown v. Board of Education. And that legacy still lingers for Loudoun Countys students of color, as spelled out in two damning reports confirming discrimination against Black and Latino students. In a 63-page November report, Democratic Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring found the school districts policies and practices resulted in a discriminatory impact on Black/African-American and Latinx/Hispanic students.  Students of color, the report found, were denied access to gifted and talented programs on the basis of race at one of the countys top application-only public schools, the Academies of Loudoun. The countys follow-up equity assessment, conducted by a third party diversity consultant, found white students frequently used the N-word around Black students with little to no recourse while Black students were often disproportionately reprimanded for minor offenses. Theres systemic and theres institutional, structural racism that is at play, said Pastor Michelle Thomas, president of the Loudoun NAACP, who has been pushing both the school board and the state to do something about the racial inequities in Loudoun County. Other parents described cultural challenges their students faced. One parent who wished to remain anonymous said that their children, who are Asian American, were called terrorists by their white peers. Meanwhile, the school board hasnt had a Black member since 1999 and only two people of color sit on the board today. All of this prompted local advocates and concerned parents to pressure the district to enact reforms as early as 2018. In September 2020, the school board put forth a comprehensive equity plan with instructions to address what it described as issues of diversity, equity and inclusion in the county schools. Among its recommendations: implicit bias training for teachers, an accountability system for addressing student racism and prioritizing diversity in its hiring practices. It also included a provision for more inclusive language for trans and gender nonconforming students. Not everyone was on board. It feels like it all started when things started getting put in writing, Garrett said of the conservative backlash she witnessed. That we acknowledge that there is a problem. And we want to address it proactively. That really started to get people fired up.  Word quickly spread about the plan, prompting conservative parents to immediately organize groups against it. Some of those parents told POLITICO they believe the countys equity measures are part of a larger scheme to unfairly elevate the needs of gender nonconforming students and sow discord between white students and students of color. Its really dumbing down our curriculum and then rewriting it in a way that is focused on inaccuracies, said Karlee Copeland, a Loudoun County parent and treasurer of the county Republican Womens Club, the largest of its kind in Virginia. Loudoun County superintendent Scott Ziegler defended the equity plan, saying critical race theory is not part of the school curriculum. Its not a way of administering schools, Ziegler said. Its not a way of teaching students. It was never intended to be that way. But people who detract from equity work often use CRT interchangeably with equity work.  But now, critical race theory, something that few people can clearly define, is dividing parents here. Its pitting conservative white suburban moms against progressive white suburban moms who battle it out in dueling Facebook groups. But Copeland insists their motivations have little to do with politics. Weve never talked about it in the form of, How do we win our next election? It was, These are the issues impacting our community, she said. Were conservativeswe conserve tradition. Were not radical change agents.  Its the color of your ideology  Still, some Republicans in the state see the issue continuing to grow in the lead-up to November. Many of the parents helming anti-critical race theory groups in the commonwealth are also conservative operatives and right-leaning policy analysts. Prior, the founder of Fight for Schools, is a former senior official in the Justice Department under Donald Trump. And some of those leading the fight against the school board dont have children enrolled in the schools here. Tigges, who said he has led more than two dozen protests against Loudoun Countys Covid restrictions in the past year, has lived here for more than 30 years. But while hes focusing his efforts these days on the school board, none of his six kids have attended county public schools. He has instead opted to home school them, citing what he describes as a lack of a moral foundation in the schools curriculum. Im a taxpayer. Im a business owner. You know, so I paid for [school resources], he said in an interview. And the results coming out are just awful.  On a warm evening in late June, Tigges hosted more than 100 local parents and party faithful on his property, a picturesque open-air cabin and vineyard off of a winding dirt road in the hills of Hamilton, Va. Over beer, wine, burgers and brownies, the group of mostly white attendees took turns condemning the myriad issues they saw plaguing their community. Chief among their concerns: the Loudoun County school board and school districts perceived biases and commitment to what many described as the indoctrination of their students via critical race theory. Conservative parents and sympathizers here frame the debate around critical race theory in existential terms. As they see it, phrases like patriarchy, white privilege and social justice all have the same negative connotation. They argue that teaching critical race theory will only further divide students, making white children feel they are inherent oppressors. What were dealing with here is a modern-day civil rights issue, Tigges said. But instead of the color of your skin, its the color of your ideology.  Earlier that week, more than 200 peoplesome of those who later attended Tigges dinnersigned up to speak out at the school board meeting against its agenda item of inclusive language for transgender students. Parents stood on tables, yelling and booing at school board members, said Atoosa Reaser, a Loudoun County school board member who moved to adjourn the meeting early. A livestream of the meeting shows one man with his middle fingers up to the dais as others held signs, reading We the Parents Stand Up! in the air. Police arrived to disperse the crowd, arresting two, including Tigges. Its kind of difficult to believe that they want whats best for kids when theyre behaving that way, Reaser said. Since that meeting, Reaser said she has felt uneasy as the local movement against critical race theory has grown. She said she is fearful that the school board recall effort could devolve into something more dangerous. As an example, she pointed to one Facebook comment from a former school board member calling on conservative parents to show [current school board members] what an insurrection actually is.  How much more room is there for escalation?, said Reaser. People died on January 6.  Viewing everything through the lens of race  Eight days after the raucous school board meeting, Republican gubernatorial candidate Glenn Youngkin held a campaign rally right outside the building where it took place. The event, billed as a launch rally for Youngkins education plan, was the clearest picture yet of how Republicans co-opting critical race theory is animating Northern Virginia politics. Democrats have repeatedly criticized Youngkin, whom a June poll from JMC Analytics shows is trailing slightly behind McAuliffe. They argue his policy plans are insubstantial and decry his campaign strategy of leaning into culture war issues that animate the base. But animating the base works. Youngkin received the loudest applause at last weeks rally when he cited his day one priority: issuing an executive order to end the teaching of critical race theory in schools. In a press gaggle following his remarks, Youngkin pushed back on Loudoun County officials repeated assertions that critical race theory is not being taught in schools. Supporters of Glenn Youngkin cheer him on. | Amanda Andrade-Rhoades for Politico  We actually see what critical race theory is doing to the curriculum by dividing our kids and seeing and viewing everything through the lens of race, Youngkin said. We should absolutely just go back to our basic view that Martin Luther King taught us, which is we should judge people by the content of their character not by the color of their skin.  Republican Party chapters have gone all in on critical race theory by making it a core campaign issue for candidates up and down the ticket. Several have shifted their campaign messaging over the last couple of weeks to condemn critical race theory, extending its message beyond Loudoun County to the rest of the vote-rich Northern Virginia region. The thing thats gotten the play, obviously, is critical race theory, and then the transgender issues, but I think for our group, theres so many different issues, Prior said. It is absolutely, utterly exhausting  Democrats, meanwhile, are walking the line between engaging with Republican talking points and eschewing them altogether. [Republicans] are going to take everything that people are afraid of, throw it under critical race theory and run with it, said Lissa Savaglio, chair of the Loudoun County Democratic Party. And nobody really knows what critical race theory is. So everybodys just kind of like, Oh, well, that definitely must be whats happening.  Savaglio and other Loudoun County Democrats have implored party leadership in the commonwealth to help counter conservatives message. In a June statement, Savaglio and the county leadership team said that they warned party leadership as early as May that Republicans inflammatory remarks, disinformation, and threats of violence would divide our community and lead to violence.  Republicans are engaged in the newest round of their ongoing culture wars aimed at stoking hatred, divisiveness, and fear to drive their voters to the polls and keep those afraid of violence from speaking out, the statement continues. Some parents look at the push against teaching racial and gender equity in schools as misguided at best. Some parents of color, too, feel they have had to assume a role of de-facto race explainer to their white peers. Its exhaustingit is absolutely, utterly exhausting to have to educate people, said Ramona Clifton, a Loudoun County parent. Its a heavy burden. And it shouldnt be our burden as Black people in this community to keep educating the white people in this community about what it means to be Black or what racism is.  McAuliffe, for his part, is downplaying the furor over critical race theory. His campaign maintains it is focusing instead on his policy plans for education that include increasing teacher pay and expanding broadband accessconcerns his aides say voters talk about on the campaign trail far more often than critical race theory. Thomas of the local NAACP said she feels the recent conservative push against critical race theory has distracted from the actual inequities that exist in the county. And those leading the charge against critical race theory, she said, have goals that are political rather than educational. They are willing to springboard their pursuits on the backs of Black kids who have been suffering in this town for at least 80 years, she said. This is their pilot program.