No CRT! No masks! Glenn Youngkin makes changes, promises probe in Loudon County School's sex scandals
Soon after taking office, Virginia’s newly-appointed Republican governor Glenn Youngkin has prohibited Critical Race Theory (CRT). He also outlawed mask mandates in schools and promised to launch a probe into Loudoun County Schools after an alleged rape at a high school. On Saturday, January 15, after taking the oath, Youngkin pledged to “restore trust in government and to restore power to the people” and signed nine executive orders and two executive directives, which included revocation of a vaccine mandate for all state employees.
The 55-year-old said: “The way that Virginia works is that the governor cannot ban mask mandates. Schools make those decisions. We will in fact, then, also make sure that schools allow parents to exercise their rights for what's best for their children, to opt-out of those mandates.”
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A press release by his office detailed the new orders as it stated, “Executive Order Number One delivers on his Day One promise to restore excellence in education by ending the use of divisive concepts, including Critical Race Theory, in public education. Executive Order Number Two delivers on his Day One promise to empower Virginia parents in their children's education and upbringing by allowing parents to make decisions on whether their child wears a mask in school.”
In a statement on the executive orders, Youngkin noted: “The work is only beginning. The important steps we are taking today begins the work of restoring excellence in education, making our communities safer, opening Virginia for business and reinvigorating job growth, and making government work for the people, and not the other way around.”
He also commented on CRT and deemed it as “political indoctrination”. He added: “This denies our students the opportunity to gain important facts, core knowledge, formulate their own opinions, and to think for themselves. Our children deserve far better from their education than to be told what to think.”
Even before becoming the governor, Youngkin had expressed his frustration with CRT and in an interview with Sean Hannity had said, “Our schools are teaching our kids what to think as opposed to how to think. We're going to go in on day one and re-establish excellence in schools.”
Along with Youngkin, Virginia got its new Attorney General too, Jason Miyares. Miyares immediately announced an investigation into the Virginia Parole Board and Loudoun County Public Schools. In a statement, the AG said, “One of the reasons Virginians get so fed up with government is the lack of transparency — and that's a big issue here. The Virginia Parole Board broke the law when they let out murders, rapists, and cop killers early on their sentences without notifying the victims which he said raises 'questions about the lawfulness of the abrupt reversals of these decisions.’”
The statement also added that Loudoun County Public Schools “covered up a sexual assault on school grounds for political gain, leading to an additional assault of a young girl,” referring to a 2021 allegation in which a skirt-wearing 14-year-old male high school student, identified as non-binary, raped a female student in a school bathroom. The accused was then transferred to a different school, where he again allegedly sexually assaulted another student.