The Daily Wire on Tuesday sued the Virginia school system at the center of a rape coverup, stating that Loudoun County Public Schools is violating public records laws by refusing the news outlet’s requests for documentation on legal settlements.
Loudoun, like other school districts throughout the country, has abused “privacy” laws to refuse to turn over basic information under the guise of protecting children’s identities, even if children’s identities would not be exposed. The reference to inapplicable privacy laws suggests the school district’s real purpose may be to hide embarrassing conduct by administrators.
The Daily Wire’s Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request asked for a list of legal settlements by LCPS. That essentially amounts to a list of times the school district did something it could have been sued for, and how much taxpayer money it spent to make it go away. Out-of-court settlements allow the district to avoid a public trial, and settlements can require the other party to agree to certain terms — perhaps even a stipulation preventing them from talking about the school’s misconduct — in exchange for the money.
On October 2, 2023 The Daily Wire requested “copies of all legal settlements entered into between May 1, 2023 and the present,” specifying that it was “not seeking the name of the student or the parents, and you should redact those names.”
LCPS first claimed the request was too broad – suggesting it had entered into so many settlements that it would be burdensome to produce them. Then it claimed that “even if the student’s name is removed,” settlements would still be a private academic record “given that the requestor (or others) could discern the identity” of a student involved.
The Daily Wire then requested just a financial ledger showing the dollar amounts spent on legal settlements. LCPS claimed, without explanation, that it had “no records that are responsive to your request,” suggesting the unlikely situation that the school system does not keep financial records.
The Daily Wire “filed a valid FOIA request seeking information on the amount of money the School Board and Administration has spent to cover-up and avoid responsibility for their actions,” the lawsuit filed by America First Legal said.
“The documents requested are of the type that can be released, and are released by other school districts in the Commonwealth,” the lawyers write in the lawsuit, referencing records disclosed by nearby Fairfax County Public Schools. “The Respondents have not given a proper justification for withholding the requested documents and, instead, have given only shifting, improper, and pretextual reasons for withholding documents it should have simply produced.”
School officials have frequently invoked the federal “Family Educational Right and Privacy Act of 1974,” known as FERPA, to justify secrecy – even if they don’t understand what the law actually says. In the criminal trial of Loudoun’s former superintendent, Scott Ziegler, a principal claimed that a teacher who blew the whistle about being sexually assaulted by a student could have caused the district to be sued for violating privacy, even though the teacher didn’t name the student or even the school.
But FERPA provides no “cause of action” or mechanism to sue. Only the Secretary of Education can enforce the law, theoretically with a loss of federal funding — a drastic step that experts consulted by The Daily Wire could not recall any examples of.
On the other hand, districts can be sued for keeping information secret. This is the second case in a month in which the public-interest legal group America First Legal is suing on behalf of The Daily Wire’s investigative journalists.
The lawsuit could also send a message to Loudoun about using the same wrongful interpretation of privacy laws in other instances.
This year, LCPS’s new superintendent, Aaron Spence, was accused of concealing the fact that there were nine fentanyl overdoses in one high school in a single month. Spence denied the charge, claiming his ability to disclose the spike was constrained by privacy laws, even though naming an entire high school does not identify a specific child.
FERPA only applies to “education records,” and says schools “may release the records or information without the consent required by [the statute] after the removal of all personally identifiable information provided that the educational agency or institution or other party has made a reasonable determination that a student’s identity is not personally identifiable.”
It also allows for releasing information “in connection with an emergency if knowledge of the information is necessary to protect the health or safety of the student or other individuals.”
Following The Daily Wire’s exposure of Loudoun’s 2021 coverup of a rape committed by a skirt-wearing boy, LCPS commissioned an “independent report,” then withheld it citing the privacy of the victim — even when the victim’s family asked for it. LCPS also cited privacy as an excuse to avoid telling parents that the infamous rape had occurred at all, instead telling them the police were at the school for because of an unruly parent—the victim’s father.
LCPS spent at least $1.9 million on lawyers since the 2021 rape scandal, not including the criminal defense fees for Ziegler and the school’s spokesman, and any money it spent paying off potential litigants.
“Over a year ago, a special grand jury in Loudoun County explicitly stated that Loudoun County Public Schools relies on overbroad application of laws to ‘impede transparency, accountability, and openness,’” America First Legal senior advisor Ian Prior said. “Even after LCPS’s former superintendent was criminally indicted and convicted as a result of the special grand jury investigation, LCPS continues to stonewall the public when it comes to legitimate requests for how taxpayer money is being used.”
In addition to asking a judge to force LCPS to release the document, it asks that the court issue “penalties” to LCPS communications officer Dan Adams “and any other Respondent this Court finds substantively involved in the decision to unlawfully withhold documents.”
Across the country, other districts have made dubious claims that telling parents important things that happened at a school would violate the privacy of a child, even if the child wasn’t named.
In Giles County, Tennessee, superintendent Vickie Beard concealed from parents the fact that a student was arrested for allegedly making detailed plans to shoot up the school. Beard told them only of an unspecified “rumor,” later saying that “due to Constitutional and privacy rights, we cannot discuss specifics.”
Parents said the idea that the district was concerned that the alleged would-be school shooter would sue the school for invading his privacy is not credible. The real goal, they said, was to keep parents in the dark about a safety failure.
Hannah Riley, whose son testified against the arrested student and was never told that he was coming back to school, pointed out that everyone in a school is a minor, meaning that if officials could invoke “privacy” any time an incident in any way connected to an unnamed minor, they would never have to tell parents anything.
“My kid is a minor. Why did nobody give a damn then?” Riley said.