School Transgender Controversies Heat Up as Virginia Education Officials Face Criminal Charges

AMAC Exclusive – By Andrew Abbott

Scott Ziegler, the disgraced former Loudoun County Public Schools Superintendent facing criminal charges related to his alleged involvement in the cover-up of a rape and sexual assault at two Virginia high schools in 2021, moved last week to have the indictments against him dismissed.

According to Ziegler, the charges filed against him by Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares are politically motivated and should be thrown out. But even as Ziegler’s lawyers argue over the details of the indictment – an argument they are likely to lose – troubling questions about what led to the assaults of multiple female students remain unanswered.

As first reported by the Daily Wire, in May 2021, a male student dressed in female clothing raped a 9th grade girl in a Loudoun County high school bathroom. Instead of expelling the student, school administrators worked to cover up the incident and transferred the offending student to another district high school, where he sexually assaulted a second girl in a classroom.

While school administrators and many elected Democrats attempted to downplay the story, Miyares and Glenn Youngkin – then candidates for Attorney General and Governor of Virginia, respectively – highlighted it as an example of deep problems in the public school system. Upon taking office, Youngkin ordered Miyares to conduct a full investigation of the incidents.

On December 2 of last year, a special grand jury released a damning report describing repeated failures by the school board and school officials to hold the offending student accountable and protect other female students. According to the 91-page document, administrators in the Loudoun County Public School system ignored concerns from teachers, other students, and even the rapist’s grandmother in the days leading up to the first attack, displaying a “stunning lack” of transparency and “intentional amnesia.”

The report reveals for the first time that before the attacks occurred, a teacher’s assistant repeatedly wrote to her department chair about the soon-to-be offender, describing consistent “reckless behavior.” During the bathroom rape, which occurred in May 2021, another teaching assistant walked into the bathroom and saw two pairs of feet beneath a stall, but did nothing. When one teacher tried to raise a concern, she was intimidated into silence by administrators.

When the first victim’s father, Scott Smith, showed up to the school the day of the incident, he was denied entry. When he persisted to reach his daughter, he engaged in a verbal altercation with school resource officers and was escorted off campus. Shockingly, an e-mail sent to all school parents by Ziegler discussed the disorderly conduct of the father but made no mention of the rape. At that time, the rapist still had not been located and was roaming the halls.

A few weeks later, in June, the school board held a meeting for public comments on Policy 8040, which would allow students to use bathrooms in accordance with their gender identity, rather than biological sex. Smith attended the meeting, where Ziegler stated explicitly that no bathroom rapes had ever occurred in Loudoun County Public Schools – a statement that the grand jury report calls a “bald-faced lie.” In response, Smith – who had yet to receive any acknowledgement from the school of the crime against his daughter – became angry, and the school board had him arrested and removed from the meeting.

In July, the rapist was finally arrested, but was released just a few days later to the custody of his grandmother, who warned police that the perpetrator was “a sociopath.” After pursuing charges against the rape victim’s father for “unruly behavior” during the school board meeting, Loudoun County’s far-left prosecutor, Buta Biberaj, failed to pursue any charges against the rapist or contact the school district, nearly allowing him to return to the same high school.

Instead, the rapist was transferred to another district high school, where he continued his pattern of inappropriate behavior toward girls. In September 2021, he physically grabbed one girl and asked if she “posted nudes.” In October, the rapist pushed another female student into a classroom and sexually assaulted her.

Again, however, school officials tried to cover up the incident. The district only publicly admitted that both assaults had taken place once the story went public and the connection between the two incidents was revealed. But school administrators and the school board continued to try to cover up their complicity in allowing the rapist to attend another district high school and assault more girls, a shameful act that was laid bare in the grand jury report.

The clear implication throughout the grand jury report is that the rapist’s identity as “non-binary” played a major role in encouraging school officials to look the other way and cover up the incidents. Though Ziegler certainly knew of the bathroom rape during the public hearing over Policy 8040 in June 2021, he denied it – no doubt realizing that the ugly story would undermine public support for the transgender bathroom policy. On the day of the bathroom rape, the school’s chief operating officer sent an e-mail to Ziegler stating that “the incident at SBHS is related to policy 8040.”

Many journalists who tout themselves as advocates for women and rape victims also seem oddly uninterested in answers as to why this accused rapist was apparently given multiple free passes. Typically, when someone in a position of power covers up sexual assault, the media latches on to the story. But in this case, only conservative outlets were even interested in reporting on the scandal at all. Virginia Democrats have summarily dismissed the entire probe as “rigged.” Contrary to liberal assertions that everyone must “affirm” all individuals who identify as transgender, mainstream outlets have referred to the alleged rapist as a “man wearing a skirt,” despite the offender repeatedly identifying as non-binary.

Even as this case highlights serious questions about allowing biological males to use female restrooms and locker rooms, activist groups and Democrat politicians are continuing to push such policies throughout the country. In Virginia, Governor Youngkin has rescinded the directive that allowed Policy 8040 to be implemented, but Democrats in the state are agitating to codify the rule into law, and may well succeed if they can retake the state House and governorship in 2025.

Transgender activists are only growing bolder and more aggressive as the number of trans-identifying youth continues to skyrocket. But as this case shows, there are major issues that one side of the political aisle is unwilling to confront.  

Andrew Abbott is the pen name of a writer and public affairs consultant with over a decade of experience in DC at the intersection of politics and culture.