Loudoun County Hellscape Part II: Reckless Disregard for Women's Safety

Did you know that "91% of victims of rape & sexual assault are female"?

The abduction and sexual assault of a female student at Broad Run High School were preventable. This much the grand jury report states unequivocally—and appropriately so. The school administrators' reckless disregard for women's safety was systemic and has been going on for years at Loudoun County Public Schools (LCPS).

When the perpetrator raped a young woman at Stone Bridge High School, the first time that we know of, the school had already been alerted to his dangerous sexual tendencies. When a teacher alerted her superiors, the administrators questioned her motivations. You see, the boy who ended up assaulting two female students wore a skirt. LCPS strives to be very sensitive, welcoming, and accepting of transgender students. That's the priority.

When the rape of the young woman in the female bathroom was first reported, one of the first emails explaining the situation was from LCPS' chief operating officer, who stated unequivocally that the incident "related to policy 8040." The grand jury report notes, "Policy 8040 addresses the rights of transgender and gender-expansive students." In other words, the focus of LCPS from the beginning was not on the victims and the safety of other female students potentially at risk but on the perpetrator's rights!

This explains why, even though the boy who committed the rape went missing for nearly three hours following the assault, the administration was not concerned at all for the safety and security of other female students. One would think they would shut down the school until he was found, but they did nothing of the sort. In fact, the school's principal Tim Flynn had the nerve to send out an email to the public explaining why the Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office was at the school where he made no mention of the rape but instead explained there was "an incident in the main office area" that required the police and stressed that, "There was no threat to the safety of the student body."

Imagine if you are the father of the victim receiving this email. Apparently, your daughter is so far down the pecking order she is not even considered part of the student body. Her safety doesn't count. Be not discouraged, though, the principal signed off the email saying, "The safety of our students and staff is the top priority of Loudoun County Public Schools."

But it gets worse. The "incident in the main office" the principal was talking about was about you. Yes, you (remember, you are imagining you are the victim's father). The school called you because your daughter had been "assaulted." After you were initially denied entry because you didn't have proper identification, you called your wife, who is inside the building with your daughter. She informed you that your daughter was actually sexually assaulted (raped), and, yes, you got a little agitated.

Every parent in America understands this father. Every decent human being would have immediate empathy. Most people would indeed give that parent some space. Give him a room where he can cool down, yell and cry, see his daughter and offer some comfort and protection, especially when you are the administration in charge of the daughter's safety. You failed to protect them. You take the insults and the yelling. You stand there and say how sorry you are, how you cannot possibly begin to understand how he is feeling.

Not at LCPS. In Loudoun County Public Schools, when you, a parent, "cause a scene," you have to be dealt with immediately. Remember, the safety of students is their number one priority. Police escorted the father out. And not only that, but the grand jury tells us the principal "was concerned with obtaining a no trespass letter for the father." Yes, while the rapist is still roaming the school grounds somewhere.

This is just incident one. Recall that after all this, they transferred the student to another school where they allowed him to sexually harass multiple students and ended up abducting and raping another young woman.

To highlight the administration's reckless disregard for women's safety, I'd like to focus on these other students who were sexually harassed before the second abduction and rape occurred. While the student is wearing an ankle monitor related to the first incident at a new school, he is reportedly sexually harassing other female students. To the point that, according to the report, "two female students had approached [a teacher] telling her the transfer student had made them uncomfortable by the way he was behaving." He was reportedly following them around. "The two female students asked to be moved away from him in class. The art teacher decided to create a new seating arrangement complying with this request so it would not draw attention to the situation."

Federal law requires schools to provide a safe environment for students and protect women particularly through Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972. Title IX was enacted to prevent discrimination based on sex in education programs that receive federal funding. Its scope notably includes an educational institution's obligation to have policies and procedures to protect and prevent sexual assault.

You may be asking why I focus our discussion on women when the law is "neutral" in protecting discrimination based on sex. Let me give you one statistic to drive the point home. Did you know that "91% of victims of rape & sexual assault are female" and "Nearly 99% of perpetrators are male"? This is just one of the reasons (a big reason) why ignoring the protections required by law through Title IX is such a direct affront to women specifically.

It is why the current White House's push to redefine "sex" to include "gender identity" in Title IX protections is so perverse. This unfair and unconstitutional distortion of the law has a significant disparate impact on the dignity and safety of women. This injustice is apparent in the area of women's sports. But in cases such as LCPS, you can also see that you end up with policies where a law that was clearly meant to protect female students and victims of sexual assault is now so ambiguous as to end up protecting a perpetrator because he wears a skirt and self-identifies as one of the hundreds of different genders that continue to expand daily.

At every point as LCPS dealt with this student, the Title IX requirements were brought up to administrators, who dismissed them outright. This sexual harassment and hostile learning environment for female students where whole classrooms have to be rearranged for them to feel safe, and where they have to run out of the restroom in the opposite direction of this boy (we couldn't get into that one) were treated as one assistant principal called it, a "classroom management situation."

The disregard for women's security was so carelessly handled that the punishment for the boy after these two brave young female students mustered the courage to talk to the teacher about the situation, was that he was ordered to "write on a piece of paper that he would not commit such conduct [(sexually harass his female classmates!)] again."

The administrators did nothing because they had nothing to do, according to LCPS policy. The grand jury found that "Behind the scenes, the LCPS Title IX procedures were essentially non-existent." But the superintendent at the same time was telling the public that "throughout these events, the Loudoun County Public Schools has complied with our obligations under Title IX." When they were finally forced to do an investigation, the report reveals, "The individual who ultimately conducted the investigation testified it was the first Title IX investigation she had ever done."

But do not worry, they were already pushing to comply with the pro-transgender 8040 policy that had not been enacted yet, so the perpetrator's “rights” were surely never violated. He was safe at all times.