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WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, America First Legal (AFL) filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, on behalf of a group of parents, against the Loudoun County School Board for silencing concerned parents and depriving them of exercising their First Amendment right to free speech after speaking out against allowing an allegedly illegal alien student with MS-13 ties to return to school after he was arrested for carrying a gun and threatening to shoot another student.
For years, the Loudoun County School Board has actively suppressed criticism and silenced dissenting voices at school board meetings under the guise of protecting student privacy. This led to a special grand jury report blasting the school district for hiding behind suspect privacy justifications at the expense of student safety.
On October 8, 2024, a group of concerned parents and community members attended the school board’s public meeting to voice their concerns over reports that the school had decided to reinstate a reported illegal alien student with ties to the transnational MS-13 gang who had previously been arrested for carrying a stolen firearm and threatening to kill a classmate.
Parents were rightfully concerned that the school board would allow this allegedly illegal, gang-affiliated student to return to the school, given an incident that occurred at Loudoun County Public Schools (LCPS) in 2021 when the school board reassigned a student who sexually assaulted another student to another school in the LCPS system.
During the public comment portion of the meeting, when parents attempted to discuss the safety of students, the school board — led by Chairwoman Melinda Mansfield — cut off the speakers, accused them of violating “decorum” rules and privacy laws, and abruptly ended the public comment period, depriving several speakers the chance to speak at all, including a parent whose child was sexually assaulted by a “transgender” student at LCPS.
The school board’s action to prevent concerned parents from expressing their concerns is brazen and intentional viewpoint discrimination and a flagrant violation of the First Amendment right to free speech.
Shockingly, the School Board has defended its actions to discriminate based on viewpoints by claiming that it shut down public comment to “comba[t]…misinformation.”
This is not the first time LCPS has engaged in blatantly unlawful conduct. In January 2023, AFL sent a letter to the U.S. Department of Education (DOE) requesting an investigation into LCPS’ mishandling of sexual assault incidents that resulted from a “non-binary” male student entering the girls’ bathroom and assaulting a female student. Later that month, in response to AFL’s complaint, the DOE’s office opened an investigation into LCPS allegations of sexual assault and harassment.
AFL’s lawsuit demands that the Court declare LCPS’s actions unconstitutional and enjoin the district from continuing to unconstitutionally silence parents from speaking on the safety of students at LCPS and the district’s actions related to the transfer to another school of a student arrested for carrying a gun, threatening to shoot another student, and allegedly in this country illegally and affiliated with MS-13.
Statement of Ian Prior, America First Legal Senior Advisor:
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