The Trump administration is investigating Virginia’s Loudoun County Public Schools over its decision to launch a Title IX probe into three male high school students who expressed discomfort with a biological female using the boys’ locker room.In an interview with WJLA over the weekend, Governor Youngkin said that the Department of Education is investigating LCPS over its Title IX probe, which was sparked by a March incident at Stone Bridge High School when a female student who identifies as male entered the boys’ locker room and filmed male students who expressed discomfort with her presence. The female student accused the three students of making “disparaging comments and physical threats.”Mr. Youngkin noted that Virginia’s attorney general, Jason Miyares, investigated the school district and referred the matter to the education department. “The federal government picked it up immediately, and they are working [on] their investigation as well,” Mr. Youngkin said.The governor criticized the school district, saying, “It’s unthinkable that, in fact, when the boys question that there should not be a biological girl in the boys’ locker room, they’re the ones who, in fact, are pursued by the Loudoun County school division.”“Common sense [says] that having biological boys in girls’ sports is wrong, common sense says that having biological girls in boys’ locker rooms is wrong,” Mr. Youngkin said. LCPS did not respond to the Sun’s request for comment by the time of publication. Mr. Miyares released a report into his investigation of LCPS’s handling of the locker room incident, which called the Title IX probe a “disturbing misuse of authority.”The attorney general’s report stated that its investigation was unable to find “any outside corroboration” of the claim that the male students made threats or harassing comments. Additionally, the report indicated that there may have been “exculpatory” evidence deleted by school officials investigating the allegations. The investigation also found that the female student previously filed a “false or unfounded Title IX complaint” against two of the students under investigation for the March locker room encounter and questioned LCPS’s ability to detect false complaints.About two weeks after Mr. Miyares’s report was released, LCPS dropped its charge of sexual harassment against one of the students, who is Muslim, but declined to drop the charges against the two other students, who are Christian. A law firm representing the families of the students, the Founding Freedoms Law Center, celebrated the news of the charges being dropped. However, it accused the school district of religious discrimination for keeping the investigation into the Christian students open despite “all three boys having had the same facts alleged against them.”In announcing the decision to drop the charges against the one student, the school’s Title IX coordinator said that the “conduct alleged would not constitute sexual harassment as defined in 34 CFR § 106.30 of the Title IX regulations, even if proved.”LCPS has previously declined to comment on the specifics of the case. However, the school district has claimed that the media and others are “exploiting” the story “without full knowledge” of the matter.
