AFL’S CENTER FOR LEGAL EQUALITY FILES BLOCKBUSTER LAWSUIT AGAINST LOUDOUN COUNTY PUBLIC SCHOOLS FOR PROMOTING SECRET GENDER TRANSITIONS, DISTRIBUTING PORNOGRAPHIC BOOKS IN THE LIBRARY, FORCING CHILDREN TO CHANGE IN LOCKER ROOMS WITH MEMBERS OF THE OPPOSITE SEX, RACIALLY DISCRIMINATING IN THE NAME OF EQUITY, AND FINANCIALLY EXTORTING PARENTS
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, America First Legal (“AFL”), in an action through its Center for Legal Equality and with the assistance of the Binnall Law Group, sued Loudoun County Public Schools (“LCPS”), Superintendent Scott Ziegler, several senior LCPS officials, and the Loudoun County Public School Board on behalf of eleven courageous parents for the district’s deliberate, egregious and systemic violation of parents’ rights.
Unlawful actions by the most notorious school district in America include:
- Knowingly, systematically, and willfully violating the Plaintiffs’ fundamental constitutional rights to care for, nurture, and direct the education, moral instruction, and upbringing of their children;
- Knowingly, systematically, and willfully taking advantage of the schools’ coercive power over children to impose a woke social, political, and psychological ideology and agenda, and thereby to shape and control student attitudes, beliefs, and behavior relating to, inter alia, human sexuality, equal rights, and the relationship between a parent and his or her child;
- Requiring schools and teachers as a matter of policy to deceive parents and secretly promote and facilitate a child’s “gender transition”;
- Requiring schools as a matter of policy to provide children with psychological or psychiatric counseling and treatment without parental knowledge or consent;
- Soliciting and obtaining information about student attitudes, habits, traits, opinions, beliefs or feelings regarding sensitive regulated topics such as sex, religion, race, and familial relationships without either express prior parental consent or a direct relationship to academic instruction;
- Knowingly, systematically, and willfully using “social and emotional learning” and other similar methods and techniques for the purpose of affecting childrens’ behavioral, emotional, or attitudinal characteristics related, inter alia, to race and sexuality, without prior parental consent or any direct relationship to academic instruction;
- Invidiously using racial “balancing” and quotas to favor some children at the expense of others;
- Intentionally failing to provide Plaintiffs with a safe and orderly learning environment for their children;
- Illegally hiding information about school operations and curriculum from parents;
- Illegally charging exorbitant fees and/or claiming legally deficient exemptions to Freedom of Information Act Requests;
- Illegally failing to comply with multiple Virginia laws mandating parental notifications and involvement in surveys and teaching related to sensitive personal subjects including human sexuality and race;
- Illegally implementing race-based quota systems for entry into advanced level classes and admission to the Academies of Loudoun; and
- Retaliating and discriminating against parents and children whose beliefs do not align with the woke LCPS agenda;
The complaint alleges that the Loudoun County Public Schools have have forced Plaintiffs and other parents to choose between two fundamental rights guaranteed them under Virginia’s Constitution: (1) their right to direct the upbringing and education of their children, and (2) their right to a free and high quality public education for their children. This is no small dispute over the adequacy of a math class, or anything similar. This lawsuit is about LCPS forcing parents to make the Hobson’s choice of a free education for their children–guaranteed by the Virginia Constitution–or their right to direct the upbringing of their children–also guaranteed by the Virginia Constitution.
The lawsuit seeks damages; a declaration LCPS is violating Plaintiffs’ constitutional rights and an injunction to prevent it from continuing to do so; the appointment of a special master to monitor LCPS and report to the court on its compliance with its legal obligations; and an order directing LCPS to pay for plaintiffs’ children’s education in a private school until LCPS ceases its unlawful activities.
Many will remember that Loudoun County was the epicenter of the debate over parents’ rights in the fall of 2021. Today we bring that fight to the court to vindicate the rights of parents, not just here, but everywhere. Parents across the country will be shocked and horrified to see a once-respected school system systematically destroyed in the name of woke orthodoxy. And parents must be on guard because this problem is not localized to Loudoun County, Virginia. The delusion that public school bureaucrats–not parents–have the right, the authority, and the power to decide what’s best for a child is a sickness that has spread across the country to schools in all states.
Nowhere are there parents with more courage, more fight, and more rock-solid dedication to their children than in Loudoun County, Virginia. We are proud to stand with them in this groundbreaking lawsuit, pave the way for similar lawsuits around the country, and to be part of our nation’s fight to roll back the cult of wokism in schools and to protect parents’ constitutional rights.
Statement from America First Legal President Stephen Miller:
“America First Legal, as part of our Center for Legal Equality, has uncovered a scandal in Loudoun County VA Public Schools that will chill parents to the marrow of their bones. The extreme social gender experiments being forced onto small children are nothing short of government-directed child abuse and child sexual exploitation. The earth-shaking accusations contained within this lawsuit include forcing little children — against their will — to share bathrooms with the opposite sex, to undress against their will in front of the opposite sex, to secretly transition children without parental notification (thus placing them on the road to irreversible chemical sterilization), to introduce and make available sexually explicit materials for minor children, and to try to force the silence of parents by attaching outrageous and exorbitant financial demands to requests for basic information.
These are mafia tactics from Loudoun schools, being used to sexualize and indoctrinate children as young as 5, all in the name of forcing radical gender ideology onto captive minors. If this was happening outside the context of a school, the adults engineering and sanctioning this madness would be under criminal investigation.
America First Legal, and our new Center for Legal Equality, are proud to stand with courageous Virginia Parents and our local counsel Jesse Binnall and the Binnall Law Group in filing this historic and trailblazing lawsuit to shut down these sexually and psychologically abusive behaviors being waged against children,” Stephen Miller said.
Read the lawsuit here.