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On April 14, an opinion written by one of former president Donald Trump’s judicial appointees from South Carolina, Marvin Quattlebaum, was published by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit, as reported in the April 15 Metro article “Va. schools program may violate free speech.” The opinion rejected the sage decision of Senior Federal Judge Anthony J. Trenga in the case of several Loudoun County families bringing a complaint against the school board’s attempts to address long-standing discrimination concerns.
The parents, with a national right-wing organization representing them, attempted to leverage latent Trump antipathy toward antidiscrimination initiatives with a “Kraken-releasing” tactic — spinning the school board’s action as critical race theory in social media. Judge Trenga’s deft and detailed written decision examining all the facts and assertions made it plain that there would be no endless politically motivated educational culture battles in the Loudoun County school system.
Unfortunately, Judge Quattlebaum rather preposterously asserted that the court “must accept” for purposes of standing mere “allegations, and all reasonable inferences” by the parents that their children’s unshared views on race, religion and human sexuality are being chilled. It is not clear how such a vague assertion could even be applied by the lower court or by the school board. As The Post’s reporting noted — the 4th Circuit ruling will endlessly intensify the combative disputes over educational cultures already endemic in Virginia schools. The inequities will remain unaddressed — which seems the intent.
The Loudoun County School Board should appeal Judge Quattlebaum’s flawed opinion.
Anthony M. Rutkowski, Ashburn
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