That was relevant because while rape was always covered, LCPS administrators had convinced themselves that they didn’t know a rape occurred, and therefore didn’t have an obligation to investigate whether it did. Instead, they claimed, it might have been something less bad, which might not have required a Title IX investigation.
The report said all of this was inapplicable “theoretical” talk.
“The amended Title IX regulations also require school divisions to respond to an allegation of sexual harassment whenever any school employee has notice of sexual harassment,” it said. “Based on the above information that was conveyed to Stone Bridge HS administrators and a school nurse, there can be no doubt that on May 28, 2021, within an hour of the incident, LCPS had actual notice of allegations of sexual harassment as defined by Title IX. Regardless of whether LCPS was certain whether the alleged sexual harassment had occurred, it had notice of alleged misconduct that could meet the definition of sexual harassment.”
But the report said that in violation of Title IX, Loudoun never even began a Title IX investigation.
“Title IX imposed upon LCPS the obligation to have its Title IX Coordinator make an initial assessment of the allegations for Title IX applicability… Counsel found no evidence that this occurred,” it said.
They also began talking as if they merely had an allegation of “attempted” sexual misconduct, which they claimed might not trigger Title IX. “Ultimately, the Title IX Coordinator concluded that ‘my review based on the information we have is this does not rise to the level of Title IX. An allegation of rape yes, an allegation of attempted rape? Maybe,’” the report said.
But they had simply invented the fact that it was an “attempted” rape. The victim immediately reported the rape to the school nurse. Principal Tim Flynn then wrote that it was an “attempted” rape. Pressed on the matter during the perjury trial of spokesman Wayde Byard, who was acquitted, Flynn struggled to explain why he had written that, suggesting the education doctorate did not know the difference between the words “alleged” and “attempted.”
The school system called the police on the rape victim’s father for showing up at the school angry in the hours after the rape, then offered counseling to students who might be traumatized by seeing police at school — falsely saying the police were there only to respond to an angry parent. But LCPS never offered any counseling to the rape victim, its lawyers found.
“LCPS does not appear to have made any outreach to Victim 1 or her family to check on her or to otherwise offer supportive measures as a victim of sexual harassment,” it said, despite Title IX requiring it to “promptly contact Victim I or her family to discuss the availability and need for supportive measures.”
Title IX changes during the Trump administration also mandated schools to conduct “threat assessments” to keep students safe after an incident, which LCPS did not do. That might have prevented the rapist from striking again, which he did shortly afterwards, the report said. Even though the Loudoun school board kept all students at home for “distance learning” during COVID, they didn’t consider it for someone who had been arrested for rape and was wearing a GPS ankle monitor, instead returning him to school.
“The 2020 amendments to Title IX feature many principles of threat assessments… Even if the threat assessment did not result in consideration of distance/virtual learning or placement in a specialized school designed to educate students who presented potential safety concerns, the assessment could have helped determine the conditions of, or protocols relating to, the Perpetrator’s continued education,” it said.
Even after the rape coverup scandal, LCPS did not open any Title IX investigations (except for against the rapist after his second assault and subsequent media coverage). “Since the beginning of SY 2021-22, 159 reports have been submitted by school-based administrators for evaluation as Title IX issues. None of the 159 reports have been determined to meet the threshold to open a Title IX investigation… Counsel has some concern that the Title IX office may be employing a too restrictive interpretation of Title IX.”
Ziegler heads to a criminal trial next week, where he faces three misdemeanor charges, including one for a false statement in which he denied that there had been any sexual assaults in the schools’ bathrooms, when he knew a gender-fluid teen had allegedly anally raped a ninth-grade girl in the girls’ bathroom just weeks prior. That rapist was later convicted. Ziegler has shown up to court dates so far wearing an earring and nail polish.
The school district’s lawyer was Robert Falconi, who previously worked for Fairfax County Public Schools, which had been rebuffed by the federal government for, like LCPS, falsely claiming that Title IX required schools to take no action until after law enforcement was done investigating. FCPS also was rebuffed by the courts after making the same argument as LCPS that it didn’t need to investigative whether something occurred unless it was sure that thing had occurred. A lawyer called that a Catch-22.
A secret internal report commissioned by the Loudoun County, Virginia public school system found that school administrators failed to even look into a rape by a skirt-wearing boy in brazen violation of federal Title IX laws governing sexual harassment, according to the report, which a judge...
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