Parental rights fight continues in Virginia courts over woke curriculum
Loudoun County parent Clint Thomas and Gene Hamilton, America First Legal vice president, on a lawsuit against the public school district over controversial education topics
A Loudoun County father told "The Faulkner Focus" Friday that a new lawsuit against the public school district was brought because parents feel "corruption of children" is still ongoing.
"I'm a father of five children who've gone through [the school system] and I'm involved in local business and different aspects of governance in our area. And I don't think anyone back in 2019, when this board was elected, saw this coming in the insidiousness of the equity agenda and how it's actually played out," Loudoun County parent Clint Thomas said.
Thomas said "thousands and thousands" of other parents, teachers, concerned citizens, and stakeholders in Loudoun County are saying "enough."
Residents of Loudoun County, Virginia, have helped make critical race theory a national conversation in 2021. (REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein)
The conservative America First Legal (AFL), through its Center for Legal Equality, filed the lawsuit against Loudoun County Public Schools (LCPS) "for the district’s systemic and egregious moral corruption of children and its deliberate, and almost gleeful, violations of parental rights to control the upbringing of their children."
"Parents across the country should be shocked and horrified to see a once-respected school system systematically destroyed, all because LCPS believes that it has more of a right than parents to tell a captive audience of students what they MUST believe," America First Legal said in a press release Tuesday. "Fortunately, as we have seen, there are no parents with more courage, more fight, and more rock-solid dedication to their children than in Loudoun County, Virginia."
Some of the policies targeted in the America First Legal lawsuit, which the group noted was "on behalf of eleven courageous parents," include Policy 8040 and Regulation 8040, which, the group said, "compels student speech, forces young children to use bathrooms and locker rooms with members of the opposite sex, and keeps parents in the dark when their children lead a double life as a different gender during school hours."
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Gene Hamilton, America First Legal vice president, told host Julie Banderas that Virginia parents have the "fundamental liberty interest to control the upbringing, moral instruction and education of their children."
"But what happens when schools, like what we're seeing in Loudon, are violating that fundamental rights of the parents, while also threatening the right and putting parents in a position where they have to choose? Do I want to be able to continue to control the upbringing of my kids, or do I want to continue to receive this free education?" Hamilton argued.
"That is the choice. They should not be forced to make it. And that's why we're bringing this lawsuit."
Fox News' Cortney O'Brien contributed to this report.