Youngkin’s Bumpy Critical Race Theory Fight in Virginia Highlighted in CNN Townhall

Virginia Gov. Glen Youngkin at a campaign event for Republican Congressional district candidate Yesli Vega in Fredericksburg, Va., on Oct. 17, 2022. Terri Wu/The Epoch Times

The town hall meeting hosted by CNN on March 9 highlighted Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s fight over critical race theory (CRT)—a Marxism framework that views America as systematically racist. His road has been bumpy.

In his opening remarks, Youngkin described the Commonwealth as having some of the best schools but are plagued with lower standards and academic performance, partly due to focusing on equity—equal outcomes—and CRT.

The public school lockdown during the pandemic offered parents “a front-row seat in their child’s education in kitchens and family rooms,” he said, adding that parents saw what was taught in the schools as “pitting children against one another based on race, sex, or religion.” “What they also saw were materials that really weren’t comfortable for them and consistent with their family values.”

Keeping his campaign promise, on day one of his governorship, he issued executive order one to ban the teaching of “inherently divisive concepts,” including CRT. Since then, significant battles ensued, such as fights over the history and social science standards of learning (SOL) and transgender student policies, topics discussed multiple times during public meeting questions and answers.

New History Standards

When a social studies teacher asked the difference between teaching CRT and teaching historical injustices such as slavery and segregation, Youngkin said the key difference was whether the teaching was done with judgment. He does not want divisive concepts in curricula and materials “forcing our children to judge one another.”

The new history and social science SOL is perhaps the Youngkin administration’s bitterest fight to date. This week and next, the Virginia Board of Education (VBOE) is holding six public hearings on a third version of the SOL drafted in January (pdf). Virginia law requires the SOLs to be updated every seven years, which means a revision of the current 2015 version is due to comply with the law.

Virginia Board of Education's public meeting in Richmond, Va., on Nov. 17, 2022. Courtesy of Virginia Department of Education

Many Virginia teachers, historians, and activists wanted the August 2022 version of the SOL under the previous Democrat, Gov. Ralph Northam. They rejected the November version under Youngkin as “white supremacist indoctrination,” a “whitewashed version,” and labeled it “the Youngkin standards.” After an all-day meeting in November 2022, the board asked the Department of Education to present a revised version for review.

At a similar meeting in February, dozens of speakers echoed many of the same concerns voiced in November. With a five-member Youngkin majority, VBOE rejected a request to use an alternative draft authored by six organizations, including the Virginia Social Studies Leaders Consortium (VSSLC), the Virginia Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (VASCD), the American Historical Association (AHA), the Virginia Council for the Social Studies (VCSS), the National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS), and the Virginia Geographic Alliance (VGA).

Instead, the board accepted the January version to move forward with as the base document for public hearings. Among the four Democrat appointees, three board members’ terms expire on June 30, leaving only one whose term expires in 2025.

Therefore, after June, VBOE will be able to approve a history and social science SOL that reflects conservative viewpoints of “individual dignity and representative government,” as stated in the draft’s “principles” section.

The January draft also includes a new section titled “Implementation of Virginia’s History and Social Science Standards” that says, “Students should be exposed to the facts of our past, even when those facts are uncomfortable. Teachers should engage students in age-appropriate ways that do not suggest students are responsible for historical wrongs based on immutable characteristics, such as race or ethnicity.”

The implementation guidelines also require “a level of consistency and comprehension” of curriculum selected by local school boards “so that ‘teacher-created curriculum’ is unnecessary.”

“I’m pleased with our history standards because I think they will be the best in the nation,” Youngkin said at the town hall. “We, in fact, enhanced the discussion of slavery and made sure that everyone understood for the first time in Virginia history standards that the cause of the Civil War was slavery, and the teaching of that basic fact is critical.”

A middle school history teacher in Virginia previously told The Epoch Times that an SOL might not deter a history teacher from teaching the CRT viewpoint that America is systematically racist. It’s already taught in her Virginia Beach City Public Schools District. However, the August version would have given teachers “permission to teach it deeper and deeper.”

Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin (C) signed an executive order in the State Capitol to ban the teaching of critical race theory in public education on Jan. 15, 2022. Courtesy of Brandon Jarvis of Virginia Scope

New Transgender Student Policy

During the town hall, the host asked Youngkin to give an example of an “inherently divisive concept” other than CRT. In response, Youngkin mentioned the concepts of oppressed versus oppressor because of sex or religion.

Under his administration, Virginia took a sharp turn on transgender student policies with new guidelines released in September.

According to the new guidelines, public schools cannot affirm a student’s gender without a parent’s written request. In addition, bathroom and locker room use are to be based on students’ sex, defined as the biological sex at birth. Student sports participation should be sex-based as well unless federal laws require otherwise.

The new policies completely reverse the previous guidelines, which define transgender as a student’s “self-identifying term.” Those rules, which took effect in March 2021 under former Democratic Gov. Ralph Northam, ask schools to consider not disclosing a student’s gender identity to the parents “if a student is not ready or able to safely share” it with their family.

During questions and answers, Youngkin made his view of the roles of parents and teachers in education: “In the heart of education is parents. Right behind them are our teachers. And we know that when we have a partnership between parents and teachers, Virginia’s kids will thrive.” He reiterated the same points when responding to a transgender student.

Jean Ballard (C) protests Fairfax County school board’s pro-transgender policy outside of the Luther Jackson Middle School in Falls Church, Va., on June 16, 2022. Terri Wu/The Epoch Times

Within days of the model policy release, Pride Liberation Project (PLP), a youth LGBTQ advocacy group based in Fairfax County, organized a student walkout on Sept. 27. PLP reported participation from nearly 100 schools, mainly concentrated in Fairfax County and other counties in northern Virginia, including Loudoun, Prince William, and Arlington. The demonstrations were widely reported in mainstream media as an indication that students are against the new transgender policies. However, The Epoch Times obtained a PLP debriefing recording that revealed the opposite: most students who joined the walkouts were there to skip class.

The Department of Education received over 70,000 comments before the one-month public comment period ended in October. The model policies will become effective when finalized by the superintendent of public instruction. The position is currently vacant after Jillian Balow resigned earlier this month.

Reactions to the Town Hall

Youngkin’s town hall performance was primarily praised by conservatives.

“Governor Youngkin was elected in large measure to empower parents to be a part of their children’s education. That message and his work since taking office was on full display tonight,” Ian Prior, executive director of Fight for Schools, a parental rights group, told The Epoch Times. “And while he showed compassion and understanding for some in the audience that opposed his common sense policies, he did not back down from his commitment to an education system free of political agendas and instead focused on providing an opportunity for all students to achieve excellence.”

Meg Kilgannon, a senior fellow with the Family Research Council, a Christian advocacy group, told The Epoch Times, “Governor Youngkin’s Townhall on education tonight revealed some important issues. There were only a few questions on education itself—teaching and learning. The vast majority of the time was spent parsing social policy and services that are delivered through schools with or without parental consent.”

“Governor Youngkin strongly defended the family, family values, and even the pledge [of allegiance]. He did so graciously, with respect for those who hold different views,” she added.

The left, however, threw some severe attacks. “Glenn Youngkin’s CNN town hall offers GOP bigotry ... with a smile,” wrote one MSNBC blogger. Blue Virginia, a progressive online media that aims to help elect Democrats in the Commonwealth, wrote in a tweet the next day, “It’s actually standard Glenn Youngkin—slick, oily, smarmy, dishonest, evasive, vapid, consultant-created talking points, etc.”