Loudoun Schools curriculum attacked, defended at protests before board meeting

Speaker Ian Prior, executive director of Fight for Schools, a political action committee trying to make LCPS more conservative, and senior adviser to America First Legal, a group of led by former Trump administration officials that is suing LCPS over its curriculum, agreed. He said the dispute was over school policies and shouldn’t involve personal attacks. Prior said advocates should “stick close to their moral compass” and set a good example for their children in the language they use.

“We have to play by the unwritten rules of political discourse which means you hit hard, and you hit often, but in the strike zone,” Prior said . “You don’t go for the head. You don’t go for the knees.”

But keynote speaker the Rev. John K. Amanchukwu Sr. wasn’t part of the charm offensive. He described those whose beliefs and policies he disagrees with as “the enemy.” He said teachers trying to educate children about the history of racism in America were doing the work of “Satan” who is “trying to destroy our children.” He said Critical Race Theory — a college-level course on the effects of systemic racism that isn’t taught at LCPS — was “evil.”

“Racism cannot get rid of racism,” Amanchukwu said. “Critical Race Theory is racism.”

Amanchukwu, who said Christianity was infallible — “God has never gotten it wrong,” he said — acknowledged the atrocities of slavery and the Jim Crow era, but denied the existence of organized and systemic racism. He insisted racism was only an individual failing.

Amanchukwu, who is Black, said the Democratic Party has a “demonic intent” to divide America and he condemned Black people who vote Democratic. According to the Pew Research Center, 83% of Black voters “identify or lean” Democratic compared to 10% for Republicans.

“Blacks have become political capital for the liberal agenda,” Amanchukwu said to applause from about 150 right-wing protesters. ”Blacks are also the chief prostitutes of the Democratic Party. They screw us and barely pay us, but we keep coming back for more.”

Teaching gay and transgender children that they shouldn’t be ashamed of their sexuality or gender identity is the equivalent of being “groomed,” according to Amanchukwu.

“Boys are being told they can be girls. Girls are being told that they can be boys,” said Amanchukwu, a North Carolina resident and graduate of Liberty University, whose founder, the late Rev. Jerry Falwell, blamed gay people for the 9/11 attacks. “Parents, through child abuse, are giving their children puberty blockers.”

Amanchukwu said time spent teaching about racism and sexuality meant teaching math and reading had been neglected. “The majority of the Black students in Loudoun County can’t read and do math on the right grade level,” Amanchukwu said.

Amanchukwu’s statement is false. While the percentage of Black students who passed the 2021-22 Standard of Learning English and Math tests was below the overall rate for LCPS students, the vast majority of Black students passed, according to Virginia Department of Education statistics. In English reading performance, 73% of Black students passed compared to the 80% overall passage rate. In math, 62% of Black students passed compared to the 74% overall rate.

Like Amanchukwu, speaker Julie Strauss Levin, condemned liberals. Levin, the wife of radio and TV talk show host Marc Levin who has said Democrats are “killing America,” credited Loudoun County parents with getting Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin elected. Youngkin used LCPS’s handling of two sexual assaults of students and the district’s transgender policies as wedge issues during last year’s election.

Julie Levin said anti-racism and gender education are “American Marxism” and those who support it are un-American.

“They don’t believe in America. They don’t believe in her founding,” she said. “They don’t believe America is the most exceptional country in the world.”

While Levin spoke, about 20 left-wing protesters protested in support of teaching about race, racism, and white privilege to give children a better understanding of the country they live in. They carried signs with slogans including: “Fear Less, Love More” and “Don’t Erase, Embrace Culturally Responsive Teaching.”

Kathy Ellen Davis, a private school teacher in Fairfax County who has a child who attends LCPS, was among the protesters. Davis, a part-time book seller, said she was saddened by efforts by parents to ban and censor school books they don’t like. According to PEN America, an anti-censorship group, 1,145 books were banned in school districts nationwide between July of last year and March of this year.

The number is an all-time high. PEN said the majority of the top 10 books banned were because they contained LGBTQ references and were deemed too sexually explicit.

Davis said it’s important that students of different races and genders see they’re represented in books and noted that books with highly sexual content are usually for 10-12th graders. She said downplaying racism in America won’t reduce it and to empower children to fight it, they have to talk about it.

“I don’t understand what’s so bad about teaching kids about race and gender and privilege. These are things that exist in our world.” she said. “It’s a good thing to teach them about reality so we can make our world a better place.”