Loudoun County Public Schools diversity council in Virginia threatened to “silence” any parents who voice opposition to the affluent school district’s inclusion of critical race theory in its curriculum.
In a series of now-deleted social media posts, The Loudoun County Public Schools Minority Student Achievement Advisory Committee (LCPSMSAAC) threatened that they “can and will silence the opposition” of their mission dedicated to “advancing equity through action.” The posts, which encouraged people to avoid “sow[ing] seeds of untruths, hate, and distrust,” were reshared by at least one school board member.
“There is strength in numbers & we believe wholeheartedly, that united, we can & will silence the opposition. We ask that you please support our call to action by engaging in these 5 small, but impactful actions to help us in our mission of Advancing Equity Through Action!” the now-deleted tweet read.
Shortly after the initial posts were removed, LCPSMSAAC tweeted that the original statement “was shared in error.”
“It was a personal statement taken out of context and not at all reflective of the MSAAC committee or LCPS as a whole, and does not align with our mission and goals,” the group argued in a Twitter thread. “We are fully supportive and welcoming of all opposing views and the rights of those who hold them to be able to express them in a civil manner. We do not condone violence nor threats of violence.”
We are fully supportive and welcoming of all opposing views and the rights of those who hold them to be able to express them in a civil manner. We do not condone violence nor threats of violence.
— LCPS MSAAC (@LCPSMSAAC) March 27, 2021
Loudoun Parents for Education (LPE) condemned the diversity council’s original tweet as an“official state action to harass and intimidate Loudoun County students and parents in the free exercise of their First Amendment rights.”
“Loudoun County Public Schools, which isn’t even open full time, is spending its time and taxpayer resources on a curriculum parents don’t want, and then pushing out calls to action to silence anyone that opposes that curriculum,” LPE’s Ian Prior said in a press release.
The Virginia Project, a political action committee, also condemned the original post by LCPSMSAAC as “outrageous.”
“This being a compounding and authorization of the ‘enemies list’ activity and an official act by LCPS explicitly seeking to deny our First Amendment rights and outrageously calling citizens an ‘opposition’, we will be suing LCPS for billions,” David Gordon of the Virginia Project told the Daily Caller.
The controversial tweet follows the recent discovery of a 624-member private Facebook group named “Anti-Racist Parents of Loudoun County” where parents and school board members created a list of other district parents “suspected of disagreeing with school system actions, including its teaching of controversial racial concepts — with a stated purpose in part to ‘infiltrate,’ use ‘hackers’ to silence parents’ communications, and ‘expose these people publicly.'”
In a recent Loudoun County Public Schools board meeting, one mother reprimanded the board members, supervisors, and other school administrators who were members of the Facebook group and remained complicit when the list circulated.
“You all remained silent while this mob blacklisted several of your constituents,” the mother said. “I was personally attacked. My name, my first name, my last name, where my son goes to school, who my husband is, where I live, and three pictures of me were all on that Facebook page … Beth Barts, you incited this mob. I blame you for these people, including teachers to come after us because we have different opposing views. Have you not learned your lesson yet? … We’ve had enough of your shenanigans. Put our children first.”
Barts, along with five other board members, face a recall election for “neglect of duty, misuse of office, and incompetence in the performance of their duties” for their roles in the doxxing “anti-racist” Facebook group.
