Loudoun County Public Schools in Virginia is facing allegations of “religious discrimination” for its Title IX investigation into male high school students who expressed discomfort with a biological female being in the boys’ locker room.

A law firm representing three male students at Stone Bridge High School, Founding Freedoms Law Center, says the investigation into its clients for “asking why there was a girl (claiming to be a boy) in their locker room” has “only gotten crazier.”  

“LCPS has DROPPED its charge of sexual harassment against one of the boys. But shockingly, at the same time, they have DOUBLED down on the other two boys by adding the additional charge of ‘sex-based discrimination’ — DESPITE all three boys having had the same facts alleged against them,” the law firm said. 

The update in the investigation comes days after Virginia’s attorney general, Jason Miyares, called the district’s investigation a “disturbing misuse of authority.”

In announcing the decision to drop the charges against one of the three students, 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.”

Founding Freedoms Law Center says the student for whom LCPS dropped the charges is Muslim, while the students who had a charge added are Christian. The firm accused the district of engaging in “blatant religious discrimination.”

A lawyer at Founding Freedoms Law Center, Josh Hetzler, said, “This is now a case of clear religious discrimination against our two Christian clients. While we celebrate the dismissal of our Muslim client from LCPS’s Title IX ‘sexual harassment’ investigation, there is absolutely no basis for keeping this going against the two Christian boys. The same facts were alleged against them all, yet the only difference is their faith.”

A mother of one of the two students still under investigation, Renae Smith, said, “LCPS is targeting my son. He is under investigation based on the same allegations as the boy whose charge was dismissed. My son did nothing wrong, yet he is being subjected to an unfair process which clearly is designed to silence Christians who speak up against a radical agenda.”

A spokesman for LCPS, Dan Adams, declined to comment on Founding Freedoms’s press release and said the district is “restricted in what we can discuss regarding specific Title IX investigations.”

The controversial Title IX investigation was launched after a March incident in which a biological female student, who identifies as male, entered the boys’ locker room at Stone Bridge High School and filmed three male students who expressed discomfort with her presence.

LCPS is investigating allegations they sexually harassed and threatened the female student. The video that was taken by the female student shows the male students expressing discomfort with the presence of a girl.

“Why is there a girl? I’m so uncomfortable there is a girl,” one student is heard saying in the video. 

However, the video does not show the male students making derogatory or threatening comments. LCPS has repeatedly declined to publicly share the exact nature of the charges. 

The LCPS investigation garnered the attention of top elected officials in Virginia, including Mr. Miyares, who investigated LCPS and found that the female student alleged the male students made “disparaging comments and physical threats.” The female student also accused the male students of “misgendering” her — or not using her preferred pronouns — despite a lack of such comments in the video.

Mr. Miyares’s office released a report detailing the findings of its investigation and said it 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 that was deleted. 

The attorney general’s report also states 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. The report questioned LCPS’s ability to detect false complaints.

LCPS has previously defended its investigation. The LCPS chairwoman, Melinda Mansfield, said in a statement that “some individuals, media outlets, and political groups seem to be exploiting this situation without full knowledge of, or knowingly misrepresenting the facts, using it to advance their own agenda.” 

Mr. Miyares referred the investigation of the three male students to the Department of Justice Civil Rights Division.