OPINION:
Two boys in Loudoun County, Virginia, were suspended from school Tuesday after complaining about a girl hanging out in their locker room as they undressed. Her proximity was troubling, but she also allegedly filmed the boys with her cellphone.
Rather than do something about the aberrant behavior, Stone Bridge High School went after the victims, the boys, by charging them with “sexual harassment” in the March incident.
“After careful consideration and review, I have decided to uphold the OSA Director’s decision to suspend [the male student] for ten days for a serious offense,” Chief of Schools Rae H. Mitchell wrote in a letter to the parents. “My decision to uphold the suspension is made to ensure a safe and respectful learning environment for all students and staff.”
Only one will serve the penalty because the other gave up and moved to a saner high school. America First Legal and Founding Freedoms Law Center are standing up for both by suing the school board for violating the Virginia Religious Freedom Restoration Act and federal anti-discrimination statutes.
According to the complaint, the high school sophomores didn’t create a disturbance or confront the female lookie-loo. They just made remarks among themselves of the sort one might hear in a boys’ locker room. As Christians, they objected on religious grounds to disrobing in her sight.
A third student, a Muslim, was initially accused of the same conduct. All three voiced a faith-based concern, but Loudoun County Public Schools chose to persecute only the Christians.
Last month, the board voted in a closed, midnight session to continue the policy of allowing anyone to go into the locker room of the opposite sex by declaring a new “gender identity,” in defiance of new U.S. Department of Education guidance. Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares opened an investigation into the county’s actions earlier this year.
Loudoun attracted the wrong kinds of headlines in 2021 after a skirt-wearing boy was found to have assaulted girls in their bathroom under the board’s permissive policies. The board was sued for covering up what happened.
“The common thread through both actions by the Loudoun County School Board is its demand that all students accept radical transgender ideology or suffer severe consequences,” America First Legal’s Ian Prior said in a statement. “As a result, the Loudoun County School Board and administration will now have to justify to a federal judge its knowing and intentional violation of the Constitution, federal and state laws, and common sense.”
Boys have a right to comment with one another about the unwanted presence of a girl in what is supposed to be a semiprivate space. The board won’t acknowledge this straightforward First Amendment claim because the officials are promoting a secular theology.
“Gender identity” is the fake construct of radical leftists in a state of denial about biology. If you substitute characteristics like one’s race or height for “gender,” the absurdity manifests itself. Wearing platform shoes won’t turn someone short in stature into an NBA star. It would be as counterfeit an attempt as changing a man into a woman with pills, cosmetic surgery and high heels.
The same virtue-signaling county politicians who endlessly prattle about “the science” when it comes to global warming and vaccine mandates must either embrace reality or face the consequences. Loudoun County taxpayers shouldn’t foot the legal bill for their unscientific lunacy.
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