Tipsheet

Mainstream Media Ignores Parental Rights As They Shamelessly Use Students in Walkout Coverage

Rebecca Downs
Rebecca Downs  |  September 27, 2022 3:00 PM

As Madeline covered earlier, students in Northern Virginia high schools have staged walkouts in response to guidelines proposed by Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R-VA) to provide parents with a voice when it comes to pronouns and transgender policies. The walk outs were certainly sensationalized by local media outlets, as well as mainstream outlets like The Washington Post and The Hill. "Youngkin" has been trending over Twitter throughout Tuesday as a result, with the Recount adding in their very much one-sided view on the issue.

Youngkin's office provided a statement for Townhall about the walkouts. "The guidelines make it clear that when parents are part of the process, schools will accommodate the requests of children and their families. Parents should be a part of their children’s lives, and it’s apparent through the public protests and on-camera interviews that those objecting to the guidance already have their parents as part of that conversation. While students exercise their free speech today, we’d note that these policies state that students should be treated with compassion and schools should be free from bullying and harassment," Youngkin spokeswoman Macaulay Porter said. 

Republican strategist Greg Price and Twitchy editor Sam Janney have been vocal in calling out the walkouts and what coverage there has been, as have Gays Against Groomers. 

It's also worth highlighting that parents have protested the previous guidelines from Gov. Ralph Northam's administration, a Democrat who was Youngkin's predecessor. Such guidelines, which the Youngkin administration is seeking to update, erased parents from the equation. 

As Fight for School's Ian Prior highlighted, those guidelines from last year did not include very much parental involvement at all. 

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Those parents, school districts, and school boards came from more than just a few highly populated, particularly liberal parts of Northern Virginia. They included the Augusta County School Board which voted unanimously not to adopt those guidelines where hundreds showed up at meetings to protest those guidelines. Parents had also criticized those guidelines in Campbell County, and in Wise County. Russell County also unanimously rejected the guidelines. The Warren School Board voted against the guidelines as well. 

Parents spoke out in the Loudoun County Public School District as well, where a male student who liked to cross dress assaulted multiple female students as he was shifted around from school to school. The school board members there, though, walked out of a meeting early in June of last year rather than let parents speak up to criticize the policies.

These students, who are essentially being used by the media as well as liberal organizations and Virginia Democrats, are not the only ones to signal disagreement with the proposed updated guidelines. As we highlighted last week, Townhall had obtained letters from Fairfax County Public Schools--the largest school district in the commonwealth and one of the largest in the country--showing the district does not appear to be willing to comply. Julie Gunlock also tweeted out a letter from nearby Alexandria City Public Schools communicating a similar message.