A Virginia school district rejected an offer from the Biden administration’s Department of Justice to step in as a mediator over its decision on whether to implement guidelines from Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin that say school districts can’t transition the gender of a child without parental consent, the district’s chairman told two U.S. congressmen.
The congressmen, Reps. Ben Cline (R-VA) and Morgan Griffith (R-VA), wrote to the Roanoke Country school board after they learned through a report from The Daily Wire on the DOJ’s attempt to step into the local political matter using its Community Relations Service (CRS). The DOJ said it had the ability to step in as mediator due to “ongoing community tensions in Roanoke following the release of the new model policies for transgender students” — a reference to two leftist activists who were arrested for protesting a meeting over whether to implement the policy.
The congressmen urged school board chairman Brent Hudson to reject the offer, stating that the “parents, elected school board members, and Roanoke County taxpayers are much better suited to make important decisions about Roanoke County school matters than unelected bureaucrats from Washington.”
They were told, however, that Hudson already had.
“We have rejected the offer from CRS and agree that it would not be in the best interest of our community to allow them here in Roanoke County,” Hudson told the congressmen.
Cline told The Daily Wire that the Biden administration has “no right” to intervene in his Virginia’s local affairs, especially given its track record in the commonwealth, which includes comparing concerned parents who show up at school board meetings to domestic terrorists.
“Whether it’s targeting concerned parents in Loudoun County or seeking to intervene as ‘mediator’ in Roanoke County School Board deliberations, the Biden DOJ has no right to try to insert itself into important issues facing parents and students,” Cline said. “I applaud the Roanoke County School Board for rejecting the agency’s politicized attempt to overstep its authority and ensuring that the elected board members are the ones making the decisions.”
The DOJ’s Community Relations Service, which claims to be an impartial mediator that can step in to help communities avoid violence, says it has a mandate to step in when there are “hate crimes” in a community. It could not point to any hate crimes in Roanoke County related to the policy when asked by The Daily Wire.
The Community Relations Service has exhibited partiality on transgender issues. It runs training programs for law enforcement officers on “engaging and building relationships with transgender communities,” where “participants learn about issues impacting transgender communities and individuals, such as social and economic disparities, and high rates of violence and suicide.” In March, it joined with the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division, which is actively suing states that enact transgender policies that the Biden administration does not like, to celebrate the “Transgender Day of Visibility.” The featured content on its website is a fact sheet on “New Actions to Protect LGBTQI+ Communities.”
Youngkin carried Roanoke Country by about 30 points when he was elected in 2021. His model policy for how Virginia schools should handle transgender students states that parents should be informed if their child expresses a different gender than their own, and that parents should be given the final decision on how that is treated.