Loudoun students’ suspension over locker room incident risks district’s federal funding
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Loudoun County Public Schools could be at risk of losing federal funding after the U.S. Department of Justice claimed the school board failed to protect the religious rights of two Christian students accused of violating Loudoun’s transgender access policy, the agency said in a lawsuit Monday.
The outcome of the lawsuit could impact how all school divisions that receive federal funds must protect students’ civil rights. Loudoun Schools declined to comment due to ongoing litigation.
The agency alleges that LCPS applied its Policy 8040, which requires students and faculty to accept and promote gender inclusion, to two students the department identified as Christian men. Male students said they felt “uncomfortable” in March after a student assigned as a girl at birth changed clothes in a boy’s locker room and recorded the event.
LCPS suspended the boys for 10 days and ordered them to submit to a “Comprehensive Student Support Plan,” which the agency says further violates the boys’ right to the free exercise of their religion at school. The sentence was suspended after a federal judge granted a preliminary injunction in favor of the students, preventing the school division from enforcing the suspension while the lawsuit continues and preventing the finding of harassment from being entered into the students’ records.
“Students do not lose their First Amendment rights at the school gate,” Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon said in a statement. statement. “Loudoun County’s decision to advance and promote gender ideology tramples on the rights of religious students who cannot embrace ideas that deny biological reality.
The case was a centerpiece of Republican gubernatorial candidate Winsome Earle-Sears’ campaign this year, following Gov. Glenn Youngkin. directed the attorney general’s office to investigate the school system’s complaints against students in May.
In June, Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares announced that his office’s investigation had been referred to the U.S. Departments of Education and Justice for further review. His office described the school system’s actions as a “Title IX retaliation investigation” targeting the three Stone Bridge High School students.
The U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights found that LCPS violated Title IX and retaliated against male students by failing to treat sexual harassment complaints equally.
Loudoun’s transgender access policy, or Policy 8040, has been a source of contention since a 2021 bathroom assault case involving a male student convicted of assaulting two female students at different schools over six months. In the first incident, the student was wearing a skirt when he assaulted a female student in the girls’ bathroom, although there was no proof whom he identified as a woman.
The latest locker room incident occurred at Stone Bridge High School, one of the schools where the assaults took place.
In 2023, Loudoun County Public Schools launched a pilot program to improve toilet privacy and safety. The initiative was designed to increase accessibility and provide students with the option to use gender-specific, multi-facility restrooms or single-occupancy restrooms in all LCPS facilities. Stone Bridge was not included in the pilot.
Loudoun County Public Schools declined to comment due to pending litigation in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia.
High risk status
The school system’s prospect of losing federal funds may also be linked to a change the Department of Education made in August to how Loudoun County and four other school divisions would receive federal funds.
On August 19, the Office of Civil Rights determined that five Virginia school divisions—Alexandria City, Arlington, Fairfax County, Loudoun County, and Prince William County Public Schools—violated Title IX by allowing students to access sex-segregated facilities on the basis of “gender identity” rather than biological sex through their respective transgender policies.
The Youngkin administration has revised the transgender student model policies for all Virginia schools, however, some, such as those in Northern Virginia, have chosen not to accept them.
Because school divisions refused to sign an agreement with the U.S. Department of Education to resolve violations and rescind policies, they were placed in the “high risk” category, with the condition that any federal funding they received would be in the form of reimbursement only.
In August, the agency stopped disbursing financial aid money to districts.
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