Foes Of Critical Race Theory In Schools Hold Rally In Leesburg

LEESBURG, VA — Parents, teachers and residents of Loudoun County came out Saturday in Leesburg to denounce the county school system’s adoption of polices that they view as a foundation to Marxist political ideology and harmful to both white and Black students in the county.

Speakers at the “Education, Not Indoctrination" rally outside the Loudoun County Government Center accused county school leaders of implementing the principles of critical race theory, an academic theory developed in the 1970s and 1980s that posits societal and structural racism exists in institutions across the country.

“I’m in this fight against critical race theory and the liberal indoctrination that the school board is trying to push on our children,” Patti Hidalgo Menders, president of the Loudoun County Republican Women’s Club, told the crowd gathered at the rally.

“I know what socialism and this Marxist ideology does to a country and its people,” Hidalgo Menders said. “My parents escaped Communist Cuba in 1961. … What is happening here in Loudoun County is socialism.”

Another speaker at the rally, Monica Gill, a U.S. government teacher at Loudoun County High School in Leesburg, explained that school system officials refuse to use the term critical race theory to describe their policies.

“Our education leadership denies it, but 'equity' is critical race theory dressed up pretty. It sounds lovely — equity — but it is poison,” Gill said. “It is about equal outcomes, which is foundational to Marxist political ideology.”

“The consequences of these polices will be the demise of excellence in education for all of our students,” she added.

Ryan Bomberger, co-founder of the Radiance Foundation, said Loudoun County Public Schools leaders may contend they are not teaching critical race theory. "But they use all the tenets of it," he told Patch.

In his speech at the rally, Bomberger emphasized: "You can give any euphemism to it you want — you're still teaching sewage."

"Unlike what Martin Luther King Jr. talked about with character being more important than color, it reverses that," he said.

Most teachers do not use the term “critical race theory” with students, and they generally do not ask them to read the work of legal scholars who use that framework, according to a recent Washington Post article.

Some lessons and "anti-racism" efforts, however, reflect foundational themes of critical race theory, particularly that racism in the United States is systemic, the Post reported.

The movement against critical race theory in Loudoun County comes on the heels of parent groups criticizing the school board in 2020 and early 2021 for not allowing in-person learning during the COVID-19 pandemic.

In February, groups held a rally in the same plaza outside the Loudoun County Government Center to denounce leaders of the school system for failing to implement in-person learning five days a week.

"The fight is right now," Pete Snyder, a technology entrepreneur and nominee at the time for the Republican gubernatorial nomination, said at the Feb. 8 rally. "We have a message to obstructionist school board members in Loudoun County, in Fairfax County, in Prince William County, all over the commonwealth. If you are standing in the way of our kids getting back into the classroom, we are coming after you."

The same groups are now holding recall drives for members of the Loudoun County School Board in response to the county’s education policies on race. On Saturday, rally attendees were invited to fill out petitions for the recall of the county’s school board members.

A group of parents also recently filed a federal lawsuit against Loudoun County Public Schools, claiming that the school system's Student Equity Ambassador program — aimed at dismantling systemic racism — is discriminatory and a violation of students' freedom of speech.

The lawsuit alleges students could only participate as ambassadors if they were people of color or agreed to be an ally to people of color. Parents also expressed concerns about an anonymous racial bias reporting system that is paired with the program.

Gill, the Loudoun County High School teacher, told the crowd her faith means she must stand up against critical race theory.

"I am a Christian, which means I also have to stand for truth and that means I have to stand against critical race theory because it is so contrary to God and who he says we are,” Gill said.

At a school board meeting in May, a physical education teacher at Leesburg Elementary School said during the public comment period that his faith would not allow him to follow the county's proposed policy to refer to students by their preferred name and pronouns.

"I will not affirm that a biological boy can be a girl and vice versa. It's against my religion, it's lying to a child, it's abuse to a child, and it's sinning against our God," the teacher, Tanner Cross, said during the meeting's public comment time.

Cross was suspended after expressing his resistance to the school system's policy. But he was reinstated due to a temporary injunction from a Loudoun County court. The school system has appealed the lower court's decision to reinstate Cross to the Virginia Supreme Court.

The suspension of Cross "actually has everything to do with" critical race theory — which embraces the concept of intersectionality — and the county's adoption of its principles, argued Bomberger, who has two children who he homeschools after recently taking them out of the Hillsboro Charter Academy.

"Critical race theory, in order to actually embrace it, you have to embrace queer theory, you have to embrace class theory, reproductive justice, abortion," Bomberger told Patch.

Gill said in her role as a teacher at Loudoun County High School, she is witnessing "students in our white population experiencing the impact of equity,” she said.

“They are being told to check their white privilege where they can’t be a part of certain conversations because they are white," Gill said. "This is just one example of how critical race theory or equity treats everyone regardless of their color or race as mere avatars — just avatars on their outward identity with no regard at all for their individual characteristics."

"This whole construct of white privilege constitutes group guilt for our white students, but it also harms our students of color because it denies them the dignity, the agency and the ability to flourish based on their own merit and their own good character," she added. "It makes them victims."